


Chaos Theory

by indraaas



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, M/M, Time Travel, fic alternates between current and future timelines, slow start but picks up, this is like the angstiest shit I've ever written @ me wyd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2019-11-07 08:41:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17957279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indraaas/pseuds/indraaas
Summary: The fates give a dying man one last chance to atone for his sins, and Future Rogue finds himself traveling to the past once more to give his daughter a fighting chance in a world where both her parents are alive and peace reigns. There's just one problem - her parents are not the happy couple she remembers them being.





	1. The Butterfly Effect

_Why didn't we meet sooner? Why did loneliness burn our hearts?_

_Have we become complete by meeting? Or were we better alone?_

_Oh, my beloved._

_Neither mine nor yours,_

_Our love could not complete._

_Listen, my cruel beloved._

_-Saware_

* * *

**Unknown Timeline.**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Tuesday, November 22nd, X793.**

**12:33 AM.**

_She's a lot smaller than he imagined. Squishier, redder. She barely manages to fill out a small portion of the crude wooden crib she's ensconced in. Still, she's comfortable there, swathed in his black cloak and surrounded by the strongest runes they could etch into the bars._

" _She finally settled down?"_

_He smiles. He's been smiling a lot today. He tilts his head back and drops one hand from the railing, an invitation to join him. She shuffles in close, and his arm immediately falls to her waist, supporting her weak frame._

" _She's got your hair," she murmurs, reaching down to stroke the downy tufts. He shoots her blonde locks, piled high on her head, a pointed look. "I wasn't aware."_

" _Oh, shut up." She swats his chest lightly and leans over the rails as far as she can go without tipping over. "Your father's a bit of a sarcastic grouch when he deigns to speak," she whispers conspiratorially. A curl falls from her bun and onto the baby's nose. She scrunches her nose and turns her face, much to the amusement of her mother. "Look, she's got emotions! My genetics in action."_

" _She's not even a day old, stop corrupting her," he orders, tugging her back upright. His other arm joins the first in circling her waist, and he rests his chin on her head, deep in thought as he rubs circles into the softly rounded skin beneath his fingers. He's no doubt her stomach will be as taut as before in no time at all. Food is hard to come by, and no matter how much of his own he gives her, it still won't be enough. The baby -_ their  _baby - will be fine for the period of time she's breastfeeding, but after that it's one more mouth...he and the scouting team will have to move ahead to canvass for a safer location with more supplies._

_Thin fingers cup the back of his neck. He draws back and rests his forehead against hers, sighing. He knows that she knows - that she_ understands  _their predicament - but he can't bring himself to unload his worries on her. Not when she's been through so much already. He opens his eyes and is met with a pair the colour of honey. He hopes their child has hers. A little bit of her and a little bit of him. Something to live on if one of them doesn't. She smiles, soft and bittersweet. "I know," she whispers. "_ I know _."_

" _We need to talk about contingencies," he replies. He doesn't like it. This is not the future he should be planning for their daughter, but there is nothing he can do about it. Fight, flight, or freeze, and for her, freezing is not an option. When all the fighting is done (when they're not there to do it anymore), fleeing is all she has left._

" _Now?" She breathes. "Can this wait? Just...a few more days. I just - I need to - just a few days. Can we just pretend-?"_

" _No. The sooner we do it…" he trails off. "The sooner we do it, the sooner we're able to enjoy more time with her." Enjoyment. Another lie. There will never be joy, not as long as the world is turning to ash around them. But they can try, he thinks. They can always try._

" _We use the Gate," she says immediately. "If...when there's nobody else left, the last person sends her through the Gate. When I die, or when you do-"_

" _If," he snaps, alarming even himself at the ferocity in his tone. He's made his peace with dying, written a goodbye letter and even has a will from his younger days stashed somewhere in a requip hole they'll never be able to open after he's gone. There's no escaping it, not here, but the inevitability in her tone, the the fact that she listed herself first, burns him up from the inside, clawing at his skin and settling deep in his chest. She won't die first. She won't die at all if he has anything to say about it. He repeats it again, softer now, "If you or I die."_

" _Then the last one standing takes her to the Gate," she continues. Her hands curl around the strands of his long hair, toying with them idly. He wonders if their daughter's will be as shaggy as his, or as tidy as his lover's._

" _Where do we take her?"_

" _Where else?" she laughs, a sound that's as calming as a summer's breeze. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots his daughter turn towards it, seeking the same comfort he's found. "Fairy Tail, of course."_

" _The apocalypse is perfect preparation for your Guild," he says dryly. "She'll be more than prepared to duck for cover when your idiotic teammates have a fight."_

" _And for you and Sting," she reminds him. "You may be all sullen, but when you two get started it's like I'm watching Natsu and Gajeel, I swear."_

" _With marginally less property damage, however I'll concede to that." He presses a small kiss to her lips, just enough to taste the water that still clings to them and her own natural scent beneath, then her cheeks and her nose and before he knows it, he's covered her face in kisses and salty tears that are equal parts his and hers. He presses his forehead to hers once more, breathing slightly raggedly (but breathing nonetheless)._

" _I love you, Rogue."_

" _Lucy...thank you."_

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Friday, October 15th, X792.**

**10:47 PM.**

"You fucking cheater!" Sting screeches, scrambling to his feet. He waves a palm full of splinters, and an alarming amount of blood, at his idol, who's taken to jumping in what remains of the table and pumping his fists in the air victoriously.

"I won that round fair and square!" Natsu crows, taking a moment to pin his protege with a cocky smirk. "Face it! You're ten years too young to be thinking about beating  _me_ , the great Salamander!"

"You realize you're both biologically the same age, right?" Gajeel points out dryly from his seat at the head of the table - or, rather, where the head of the table  _would_  be had it not been demolished in what will undoubtedly go down as the third most epic arm-wrestling competition in the history of the Guild. Gajeel's managed to save his tankard of root beer ("No drinks until later," Mira had chided, "This is a last minute party so we get the alcohol last minute, too.") but the same can't be said for his plate of scrap iron. He takes a swig of his drink and keeps the tankard in front of his face in the hopes that the idiot duo will ignore him.

They don't.

"Gajeel-san! He cheated, he used magic!" Sting accuses. "He heated up his hand to get an unfair advantage."

Gajeel lets out a long-suffering sigh and chugs the rest of his drink, shooting Mira a mournful look.  _Please?_ He silently begs.  _Please, can you get me something that will blind me? Do you see what I'm dealing with?_

Mira smiles and turns away without a second glance.

Gajeel swears vengeance. But first, he has morons to rip into.

"Never said  _not_ to use magic, so…" He shrugs in what he thinks is a diplomatic manner. It works for shorty all the time when she's talking to all the annoying counsellors she does jobs for, so it should, in theory, do the same for him.

Sting turns to Natsu and nods. "We should settle who won this with another competition."

"Chopsticks?"

"You're on."

Gajeel takes a bite out of his tankard.  _That_  should show the she-devil.

* * *

"I'm marrying an idiot," Rogue mutters as he observes the rowdy group in the corner. Two seats down, Cobra snorts. "It's not too late to run. We don't have an extradition treaty with Alvarez, so if you hole up in some beachside hut he'll never know."

Lucy thwaps him upside the head and shoots Rogue a comforting smile. "Ignore him. He's just cranky because he didn't have his morning cup of poison. We're both so happy for you two, really!"

"Thank you," Rogue replies with a brief upturn of his lips. Frosch tugs his sleeve and the Shadow Dragon Slayer is pulled into a deep discussion with his Exceed and Happy about the finer points of tilapia versus haddock. Lucy shakes her head briefly and traces the rim of her mocktail glass. She's happy for them, she really is. If there are any two people on Earthland who deserve one another, it's Sting Eucliffe and Rogue Cheney. Light and Shadow. Yin and Yang. There is no one without the other. Seeing Sting exuberant is nothing new - it's an integral part of his personality - but there's a lightness to him that can't be explained away by ordinary behaviour; as for Rogue...he's happier than she's ever seen him. Still quiet and reclusive, but she watches his eyes drift over to Sting and his whole countenance relax as a result.  _Smitten,_ she thinks.  _Positively smitten._

Rogue's cloak shifts and so does Lucy. She flinches and slides a hand over her stomach, an ineffective barrier from shadows that will never come, but that she knows are angled and sharp, ready to pierce soft flesh and broken hearts. She bites the inside of her cheek, stopping only when she can taste copper on her tongue.  _Stupid, stupid, stupid_. No matter how many times she reminds herself that they're not the same person, she can't help it. They are both, fundamentally, Rogue. But their Rogue and  _that_  Rogue are forks off the same road. Nothing to fear.

Except when their eyes meet and she sees the same red that's burned in the back of her retinas, and he steps forward and she moves back, and he uses his magic and all that comes to mind is Future Lucy falling to the ground as a shadow spear blinks away, and _andand_ -

Cobra pokes her roughly. "Hey. Stop that shit. You're fine. It's an engagement party, we're here to get drunk and place bets on wedding hijinks."

Lucy avoids Rogue's probing eye and focuses on a bead of red juice as it drips down the side of her glass. She blinks and the bead is a blood red sky. She blinks again and Cobra's swiping it off with his finger and popping it in his mouth. "Ugh." He wrinkles his nose. "This is 95% sugar. Emo-prince, give this shit a whirl."

Rogue picks it up, takes a small whiff, and comes as close to gagging as she's ever seen him. "I'd rather not," he says, handing it back to her. Their fingers brush, and she's proud to say her heart only goes still for half a second before picking up pace again (she's getting better, she really is, because before she'd need to excuse herself to remember how to breathe again. She's getting better, she is,  _sheisheisheis_ -). Judging by the tightening of Rogue's jaw, he heard that. Lucy smiles, a real, genuine thing that hurts her muscles to keep steady, and says, "Sorry. I'm just…"

"I know," Rogue replies. "I understand. Sorry."

"Man, you two are a depressing lot," Cobra grumbles. "And that's saying something seeing as I grew up with this gothic douche." He jabs a thumb at the body slumped over the bartop. Midnight half-heartedly flips him the bird before going back to sleep.

Lucy rolls her eyes and flags Mira down for a drink. It's officially eleven, and that's when the fun begins. One drink and maybe she can start a conversation with Rogue. She shakes her head firmly. One drink and she  _will_ start a conversation with Rogue. She's going to ask him about what he plans on wearing to the wedding, and whether or not he needs help finding a venue because she has some connections from her days in the Konzern and she's going to put them to good use. She  _will_ extend the olive branch, because it's not fair for him to feel like she blames him for what his future self did.

Her musings are cut short as Cobra backs up, Rogue following in suit. She opens her mouth to ask what they're doing, and is promptly answered by Natsu slamming into her back and sending her careening over the bartop.

"Natsu!"

* * *

**Within the Eclipse Gate**

**Date Unknown.**

**Time Unknown.**

The Gate is more volatile this time around.

His memories of the first time he'd crossed the barrier of time and space are hazy. He can't remember anything besides white-hot rage and bloodlust and cries for war in his veins. If the grotesque  _things_ crawling towards him had been there the first time around, then the magic he stole from Sting had dealt with them before he could have noticed.

This time, he doesn't have the energy to tap into the light, so he does what he does best and becomes one with the shadows. It's not hard - there's no light in the Gate, after all, so he can melt into everything and nothing all at once. He can feel the things, gnarled and without definitive shape, seeking him out, grasping one another and morphing into larger, uglier beings that are torn apart by another pair, seeking more _moremore_.

Such is the nature of the Gate. Take or be taken.

He grips the small body in his arms tighter, drawing her closer to his chest, closer to the darkness. He thinks of days when she was smaller. Days filled with blonde hair and shadow puppets and laughs like a summer's breeze. She'll know what that means, now. What a summer feels like. One with beaches and the cold ocean and sunburns and things that aren't hiding in bunkers from the sunlight, because there's always the risk that dragons will crush her when he's not around to keep her safe.

And he won't be around to see it.

But he deserves no less.

" _Where do we take her?"_

" _Where else? Fairy Tail, of course."_

Future Rogue clenches his jaw and pushes forward.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Friday, October 15th, X792.**

**11:30 PM.**

"I'm heading home," Lucy announces. "It's getting late and my head is killing me, no thanks to a  _certain someone_."

At this, Natsu chuckles weakly and presses the melted remains of an ice cube into his ribs with more force than necessary as his blonde teammate pins him with a vicious glare. The skin is already a brilliant shade of purple and is sure to stay that way for a few days. Gray rolls his eyes and produces yet another chunk of ice for the swelling. Though normally he would've laughed at his rival's misfortune, there is an unspoken agreement that angry Lucy must be met with Erza protocol - that is, to say,  _shut up and be best friends._

"Want me to come with?" Cobra asks as she slides off her stool and lays down a few bills to cover her tab.

"Nah, it's fine," she assures him. "It's a safe walk, and I know you want to stay back to get in the middle of another couple bar fights. I'll leave my door unlocked for you, okay?"

"I don't want to get into fights, I just…happen to always be around for the interesting ones," he counters. "I'll be over in a couple hours. Put the drain cleaner in the fridge for me."

"You can put drain cleaner in the fridge?" Natsu asks incredulously. "Wait, you  _put_ drain cleaner in the fridge?"

Gray stabs his bruise with two fingers. "Shut up, moron, don't draw attention our way."

"Make sure you bundle up," Cobra says. "It's getting cold outside."

"I'll be  _fine_ ," she replies. A soft weight deposits itself on her shoulders, and Lucy whips around, stumbling back a little at Rogue's proximity. He ducks his head down reflexively to hide his mouth in a scarf that's now wrapped around her neck.

"I'll be staying in the Guild Hall anyway," he says. "You can return it to me tomorrow."

_Olive branch for an olive branch._

"Thank you, Rogue," Lucy smiles. "See you for breakfast?"

He hesitates briefly. Nods slowly, and then vigorously. "I'll reserve a booth for us all."

"And a strawberry milkshake," she teases. Rogue, however, appears to take her seriously, mouthing her order once before turning back to Frosch and Happy to referee their game of Go Fish (played for real fish, Lucy can't help but note).

"Be careful," Midnight's mumble is barely loud enough to be heard over the chatter of the hall, but those close enough to hear it turn towards him. If Lucy remembers this right, these are the first words he's said since arriving earlier that afternoon.

"What do you mean?" Lucy asks. Her fingers find the inside of her elbow and she pinches hard, focusing on the sting. He's just wishing her well. A thing friends do. It's fine, she assures herself, even as her pulse picks up and the world starts to go a little fuzzy in the corners.

"Something feels off tonight," he replies, peering up at her from between his thick lashes. His head lays on the counter, cushioned by his arms. "Can't explain it. You'll be fine. You're strong, but still."

Cobra is as close to worried as she's ever seen him as he keeps his gaze on his best friend. "I'm walking you back."

"No," Lucy pushes him back in his seat. "You're gonna sit here and get in a couple of bar fights. You're going to outdrink Cana. You might even pass out here. Point is, if you come home anytime before three in the morning, you're not allowed back in my apartment for the next three visits. And I'll know if you followed me and doubled back."

Reluctantly, the Poison Dragon Slayer reaches for the remains of her fruity drink and nods. "I  _will_  hear if anything happens. No matter how far you are from the Guild."

"Yeah, yeah, go be a happy not-drunk in the corner and place an illegal bet under my name with Cana."

In a split second decision she bends down to kiss him. Cobra squeezes her hand as she pulls away, a reassurance and a promise all in one. She waves once more, calling out a loud goodbye to everyone as she makes her way to the double doors.

His indigo eye swivels over to the Reflector Mage, who's lifted head high enough to watch her depart. "Macbeth."

"It's dark," he murmurs.

"Well, yeah, it's night," Natsu states. Cobra's brow furrows as Midnight rests his head in his arms again, staring off to the side vacantly.

"Macbeth?"

"She'll be fine," Midnight's eyes slide shut. "She always is."

Cobra pulls out a maraschino cherry from Lucy's drink and chews on it thoughtfully. He hates sweet things with a passion, but right now the disgusting syrup is the only thing distracting him from his rapidly darkening thoughts. He hones in on Lucy; she's only a few feet away, humming some dumb top forty hit under her breath. He allows himself a small smile before that turns to a frown; now that he's paying attention, he sees what Macbeth had meant.

The night is dark with the thickness of dark magic. A kind that he is intimately familiar with, but makes no sense given his knowledge on the subject.

The Gate had been destroyed, after all. There is no reason for its magic to be leaking into the air.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Friday, October 15th, X792.**

**11:46 PM.**

"They're all idiots, Plue," Lucy complains to the Canis Minor spirit. "It's so hot outside!"

"Puun!"

"This thing  _does_ have its uses, though…" she muses, drawing the scarf up to cover her nose. The air is impossibly dry, which rings as odd to her. If anything, this sudden heat wave should be accompanied by humidity. Perhaps there's a fire nearby. It would explain the heat and the odd tinge of smoke to the air.

"Puun…" Plue moans, freezing on the spot.

"What's wrong, Plue?" the blonde asks. She's never seen the wobbly spirit go completely still in her time with him. Midnight's words drift to the forefront of her mind. Her hand falls to her whip instinctively, grasping the hilt and pulling it off.

Before she can unfurl the coil, a shadow flies out from the ground before her and jets into the mouth of an alley. She unfurls herself from the ball she's formed on the ground (she doesn't know how she got there but what she  _does_ remember is a shadow and blood and  _deathscreamingohgodnoLucyLucyLucymememememe_ -) and takes in unsteady gasps. Plue has already run off as fast as his little legs can carry him, on his way to Fairy Tail for backup.

She can't rationalize it. She's only ever seen this kind of magic with one person before, and he's at the bar in the Guild talking to his cat. There's no way it's him.

_Yes, there is._

There's not. There's not, because she destroyed the Gate and Natsu had said he was gone, Natsu  _promised_ and Natsu never broke promises. God she can't breathe, she can't think, she feels so much and so little and her stomach is screaming in phantom sympathy, bleeding so much, staining the castle floors, bubbling out of her lips.  _It's not him, it's not him, he's gonegonegone, never coming back._

Red eyes meet her own and the world  _shatters_.

"Lucy," Future Rogue rasps, taking a step towards her. He's worse for wear, clothes tattered and bloodied, black and white hair falling to his knees in matted waves. She spots blood in the white patches and doesn't want to imagine how much more in soaked into the black ones. She doesn't want to think of  _whose_ it is.

"You need to look after her," he says, dropping to his knees before her. It's only then that she notices a bundle in his arms, small and dressed head to toe in black. Future Rogue shoves her (gently, if it can be described as such, as if the child -  _child!_ \- is the most precious thing on the planet) into her arms. It's with a numb detachment that Lucy realizes the longer arms now wrapped around the girl are her own. She can't feel them. She can't feel her body.

"Her name is Cynthia Cheney," Future Rogue bites out. "Our daughter."

Her mouth twists open in a wordless scream. She can't even do that. Her mouth is so dry her tongue refuses to move, her throat swelling around the burst of air she wills out. Nothing.

Future Lucy had a child with this monster.  _She_ had a child with this monster. Raised her with him. Gave her his last name. Made love to this monster. She's going to throw up. Future Rogue murdered his  _lovermotherofhischildherLucy._ She's going to throw up. Future Lucy had faced this man, died at his hand, and  _knew it._ She's going to throw up.

Acid burns her heart, but she can't even spit.

God, she can't do anything.

" _Listen to me!_ " Future Rogue snarls, grabbing her jaw with one hand and forcing her to meet his gaze. "You hate me, I get this, but  _you need to protect her_. She has no idea what I…" he swallows thickly. "I'm paying the price for my sins. She has no chance on her own back there. Levy died shortly after I was returned, and that marks the end of all the people that we know there. She's alone and we agreed. One of us dies and there's nobody left to look after her, we bring her back here."

"Levy died?" she croaks. Blue hair spilling across rocks. Body pinned by the rubble. Alone. Bleeding. Glassy eyes staring up at a sky that refuses to cry as humanity's last defense winks out and dragons reign, triumphant.

Lucy cries for her.

"Focus," he says, ripping off his cloak and dropping it over the girl. His hand falls over Rogue's ( _their_ Rogue,  _sane_ Rogue; Rogue, who is going to buy her a strawberry milkshake for breakfast) scarf, nodding. "Good. I'm here with you."

Does he think-?

"Look after her," he whispers, brushing the girl's hair back in a manner she can only describe as paternalistic. The same hands that destroyed the capital now rub a soothing circle into a sallow cheek.

It hits her like a truck.

"You're dying," she gasps. "You…"

"Call it Fate, but I had one last chance...to fulfill one promise." Red meets brown, and Future Rogue smiles. It's a small quirk she's seen before, shy and fleeting, like he's not used to doing it. "I could never break one when it came to you."

"When do you go?" Lucy asks. "How do you know when to…"

"They've been calling me back since I got here," he says. "I don't want to."

"You have to." She's surprised at how even her voice is. "I'll look after her."

She will, that's for sure. Not for Future Rogue, but for Future Lucy, who had taken a shot meant for her and paid the ultimate price. The girl -  _Cynthia_ \- will never know a life without a mother. Lucy may not be as battle-hardened and solemn as her Future Self, but they are, fundamentally, one and the same. She is softer, happier, and more easily broken than Future Lucy, but she will learn.

She will.

"She's seven years old," Future Rogue informs her. "Caster Type with an affinity for water. She doesn't like the dark, so get her a nightlight. We used Sting's magic before I-before he died. She enjoys stories, especially yours. The one you never got published. She's quiet at first but once you get to know her, she never shuts up." He laughs. "You always said she got my looks and your personality underneath it all."

"When's her birthday?"

"November 22nd, X793."

Barely two years after the Dragon Festival.

Shit.

"I'll look after her," Lucy says suddenly. "I promise. You in the past will be there to raise her, too. I won't let her forget you."

"Thank you." He pulls her into a hug so tight her bones creak in protest. Copper bursts over her tongue once more.  _He's dying_ , she tells herself.  _Dying, just let him have this before he goes_. She buries her face into his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut against the soft golden glow of his body. He's becoming less solid as the seconds tick by, so she digs in more, seeking his warmth. It's what  _she_ would have done.

"Lucy, I…"

His final words melt into the sky as he disappears in a burst of golden light.

Lucy closes her eyes and weeps.

" _...love you."_

* * *

_A traveler of the fading night said goodbye in the morning._

_I couldn't be yours while living,_

_Dying, I pay my dues._

_-Saware_


	2. Quench

* * *

_Whether or not I exist in this world,_

_Whether or not you exist in this world,_

_May our love stay alive forever._

_Whether or not this Earth and Sky exist,_

_May our love stay alive forever._

_-Salamat._

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**12:00 AM.**

Some days, Mest misses being able to drink.

Rehabilitation from alcoholism helps solve a lot of things, but most of the time it's just the psychology of it all - why, how, when, all that jazz. The physical dependence, the thirst for liquor that never goes away, is his precariously positioned cross to bear; a silent reminder of how far he's come and how soon it can come crashing down on his head.

He remembers a fuzzy conversation with his AA sponsor - something about how the safest way to avoid relapse is to avoid situations that put you in contact with the addictive substance, and how bypassing physical routes taken while addicted help lessen your chances of relapsing because you avoid being exposed to conditioned stimuli that indicated you were on your way to a bar. Still, he fiddles with the rubber band around his wrist and watches Mira open up the taps. Just to see how long he can last without his body going cold for the ethanol.

(That's the funny thing about alcohol: it provides the illusion of warmth while sapping away at your core heat, leaving you colder than before and entirely dependant on the drink to stay alive.)

(As alive as you can get.)

He manages thirty-five minutes before he snaps the rubber band against his wrist and stands up to bid everyone goodbye. A polite smile for the newly engaged couple, solemn nod for Jellal, and a tight hug for Wendy (the redness on his wrist is gone when he pulls away) before he slips out the double doors and heads south towards Strawberry Street.

Teleporting would have been more convenient. His magic levels are comfortably full and he isn't exhausted in the least, but the night is somewhat warm for once and he likes the feel of the humidity on his skin.

He likes warm things.

Besides, if he recalls correctly Lucy left a scant few minutes before him. They live in the same apartment complex - neighbours, actually - so this won't be the first time they've walked home together. If he picks up his pace a little he'll bump into her in no time.

He refuses to admit it, but it's mostly because he can't trust himself to be alone right now. Lucy is always willing to lend her sofa to him when he needs company.

As Mest briskly makes his way up the cobblestone road, his heavy boots clicking against the stone rhythmically in time with his heartbeat, he can't help but notice how  _heavy_ the air is. It isn't the humid-induced kind of heavy, either. This is the same kind of heaviness that had blanketed Crocus during the Dragon Festival. His magic picks up on it before he does - he's requipped one of his heavy combat knives and his free hand twitches restlessly to call its twin. He settles for tossing it between his hands instead.

The knife is airborne when he spots Lucy hunched over the middle of the road, and then there are two.

"Lucy?" Mest calls. He drops to his knees at her side and curses. He's seen that glassy-eyed expression before - in textbooks, the battlefield, and in the bathroom mirror. No amount of shaking will snap her out of this. He drops one of the knives behind her (within easy reach) and holds the other with the blade parallel to his forearm. "Lucy, it's Mest. Doranbolt. Which name do you recognize?"

"Mest," she breathes.

_Either she remembers me from Tenrou or me now. Either way, I have her implicit trust._

"What happened?" Mest asks. It's hard to keep the curtness out of his tone but time is of the essence. Her attacker could be nearby waiting to take them both out. He's a shitty long range fighter but his close-combat is unparalleled. With a charge to keep safe, though, his best bet is medium and retreat.

"Future Rogue," Lucy gasps.

He goes perfectly still.

After the Games, Mest's main task was going around and replacing the memories of citizens in regards to the Dragon Invasion. Though he had been strongly opposed to the matter he knew that he had no choice but to obey the Council's directive. Fiore was in a delicate shape following the destruction of the capital and if word was to get out that the Royal Family had played a part in Crocus's downfall, even if it was accidental, the political uproar would be disastrous for the country as a whole. There was no time to balance repairing Crocus and burying the dead with criticizing the throne. Even the slightest chance of a coup d'êtat, Lahar had said, was too much. So Mest did what he did best and he quickly, quietly, and efficiently replaced the memories of dragons and Future Rogue with an invading Dark Guild whose ringleader used illusions of dragons to distract mages while they pillaged.

That embellishment had helped explain away the many dead mages left in the aftermath, and with a bevy of Balam Alliance members in jail to get information from in exchange for a few luxuries, there were a lot of minor Dark Guilds to blame.

While the therapists set up shop, Mest offered to alter memories for the defending Guilds'. Nothing was too big and nothing was too small, but the brief glimpse he'd gotten of Lucy's fate of the night, pieced together with bits of memory from the mages who had been there, gave  _him_ chills.

He knows what Future Rogue is capable of, what he's done, but there is no way he's alive. Natsu's recall confirmed it right after the event: Future Rogue is  _dead_ , and engrams don't lie. Not the kind he looks for.

_If he can cross timelines...who's to say he isn't?_

"He's dead, Lucy," Mest says. His voice is firm. "Natsu got rid of him, remember? You saw. Future Rogue isn't here. I am."

"No," Lucy whispers hoarsely. "He was just here and…" she glances down at her arms, gazing at the black bundle in stark terror. "He gave me Future Lucy's baby.  _Their_ baby."

He's going to throw up. He barely registers the sound of his knife clattering to the ground and his palm falling on top of it. "They had a baby?" Mest croaks. "He killed the mother of his child?"

"There was nobody left," Lucy says quietly. "She was alone."

They all died then.  _He_  died.

"We need to take her to the Guild. To Wendy. You both need medical attention."

Lucy bites her lip nervously, gnawing at already cracked flesh. "Can we go to Porlyusica instead? It's just...I can't...not now."

"Cobra's probably heard you already," he warns as he sends his knives back to their requip stores. He pauses and requips a small blade to affix at his wrist - just in case.

"Porlyusica has wards," Lucy says. "I helped Freed put them around her house."

Mest sighs. "Alright, I'll take you to Porly's. I've never done a mass teleportation before, so I'm warning you to get ready for anything. Hold onto her tightly."

As he gathers them in his arms, he can't help but shiver.

It's almost as if something... _brushed_  him.

Licking his lips, he allows the familiar feeling of emptiness to fill him from the feet up and he lets everything go black.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Eastern Magnolia Forest, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**12:13 AM.**

Porlyusica's hut is located in a pine grove deep in the forest bordering Magnolia. Though it appears small from the outside, the interior houses a small seating area attached to a kitchenette, a back room where she treats her patients, another room where she creates her medicines, and a room where she sleeps.

Mest chalks up the size discrepancy to magic and leaves it at that.

He sits squished in the corner of her treatment room, nursing a small cup of tea and watching as the grouchy hermit frits between Lucy and her daughter from the future, who is still sound asleep.

"You will be paying for the damages incurred to my living room," Porlyusica says coldly. "That table was priceless."

Mest winces. Judging by the way the wood split under his back when he had fallen through it, it had been high quality pine. Hand-carved. Still, he nods. If there was one person whose path he never wishes to cross, it is Fairy Tail's psychopathic on-call.

"The Celestial Mage is in shock, you were right. She's also got several bruises, no thanks to you," Porlyusica sneers. Lucy turns to him and shakes her head. "It's nothing to worry about. Thank you for getting us here."

"Yeah, no problem," he mumbles. "Granny, what about the kid?"

"The girl is malnourished," she replies. Her wrinkled forehead pinches as she stares at the girl under the sheets. "She's severely underweight and dehydrated. I've only ever seen this level of malnourishment in war zones, which is in line with what her timeline consisted of." Porlyusica snaps off her gloves and tosses them in the nearby trash. "She will not be able to eat any solid foods in large quantities for a while."

"What?" Lucy exclaims. "But she's malnourished! We need to feed her!"

"Idiot girl, I'm not saying we starve her more. In layman's terms, because she has been denied food for so long, allowing her to gorge herself will only make her sicker. I have her on an IV for now," the healer explains. "I will determine when she is able to eat solids and at what quantities soon enough. Until then, she stays here. Her blood work shows that she is severely deprived of key vitamins and minerals, so we will have to get her supplements in a pill form."

Mest's head is spinning.

The girl is, what, four? Four. She's as badly torn up as men he's seen return from deep-ops.

Just how bad is the future?

A small part of him wonders if that was how Future Mest died. Starved to death. Unable to stomach anything but so hungry that everything looked edible. Water like a flip of a coin. Would it kill him to drink it or would it keep him alive? Would he chug it so fast that he threw up and lost more precious nutrients, or would it kill him in his desperation to quench his thirst with water that was poisoned with blood and dirt?

Suddenly, the tea is too bitter and the room is too hot. Or was it the other way around? Either way, when Porlyusica turns her back he quickly dumps the contents in the potted plant near his foot.

"Are you sure the others can't find us?" Lucy presses.

Porlyusica sighs irritably and replies, "For the tenth time, yes. My hut is warded against intruders. I had that walking Christmas tree write up the runes himself; anyone I or my patients perceive as a threat will not be able to enter, even if we don't consciously focus on a specific threat."

Lucy frowns. "They're my guild mates, they're not a threat to me."

Porlyusica smiles thinly. "That is what you think. Regardless, you three are staying the night. I'm going to bed, there's nothing more I can do here." Mest notes that she hasn't asked Lucy why she's so reluctant to meet up with her guild mates. Porlyusica would argue that she doesn't care for human squabbles, but he has a feeling it has less to with that and more to do with understanding. Porlyusica isn't one to sugarocat, but she does have a sense of time and place. So long as it doesn't directly affect her, he supposes, she really doesn't care either way.

They can both agree that Lucy has been through enough already and doesn't need the added stress of telling her Guild right away on top of all her other worries.

"You! Hooligan, you follow me, we need to discuss the damages. You! Girl, sleep. Your daughter won't be awake for a while now, no point in fretting," Porlyusica orders.

"Cynthia."

The two pause.

"Her name is Cynthia Cheney," Lucy says.

Surprisingly, it's Porlyusica who speaks up. "A good, strong name," she says. Mest swears he hears something almost maternal in her tone but he brushes it off as exhaustion.

"Goodnight," Lucy murmurs, flopping back on her cot and closing her eyes. Mest makes to leave the room but hesitates as the healer stands by the doorway for a few minutes. Finally, she wheels around and closes the door.

"She's asleep," she says shortly.

"How can you tell?"

"Her breathing pattern evened out, as did her heartbeat," she says.

"You can tell from that far? You healers are crazy."

Amusement flashes on her face for a moment, and Mest can't help but feel as if he's just made a joke only she understands. "Yes, healers like myself can tell. Now let's move before we wake her up."

"Look, I can mail you a cheque or something for the table-"

"I don't care about the living room, that table was ugly anyway. I need to know the whole story." She raises an eyebrow. "The  _whole_  thing. Telling me that Future Rogue impregnated Future Lucy and brought his daughter to the past is not enough."

Mest drops to a cross-legged position. "Might as well make yourself comfortable," he pats the chair next to him. "This is going to get very long and very confusing, very fast."

The hermit sits and he opens his mouth, starting all the way from where it began, nearly four centuries ago.

Porlyusica is a good listener. She never once makes any noises or interrupts him. The few times he glances up between breaths, her face is composed and gaze focused ahead. Mest speaks for what seemed like hours on end but when he peeks at the clock up in the corner, he notes that only forty-five minutes have passed. When he's done, the two of them sit in heavy silence.

"This is a mess," she declares. "A horrible, horrible mess. Time is not something that should be trifled with. This is going to have serious repercussions on everyone involved."

"Explain."

"Not only will Cynthia have to live with the knowledge that her mother and father are not together, she will eventually learn of what her actual timeline's parent's were like. You cannot hide her history from her. Soon she will ask where the dragons are here. She will wonder why it's so peaceful. She'll wonder why her parents no longer love each other in that way when they have every opportunity to do so.

"Think about the parents now. Rogue Cheney is traumatized enough as is from that night. He stopped using his magic for a month after the Games for fear of his shadows overwhelming him. What do you think the knowledge that his Future self not only got a woman pregnant, but it happened to be the same woman his future self murdered in cold blood, will do to him? His engagement to Sting Eucliffe being in jeopardy is the lightest thing that can happen to him. Lucy Heartfilia is scarred from that night in every way imaginable. Now she has to wake up to a reminder of that man every single day. How do you think Cobra is going to react to his lover raising a child that isn't his? These are just the most basic scenarios."

"We need drinks," Porlyusica grumbles, procuring a flask from behind another potted plant and taking a swig of it. She extends the metal container towards him with a humourless smile. "We need to plan. Do you think we can do this sober?"

Mest stares at the flask for a long time. The burn in his throat is still there, clawing up and causing him to salivate to put it out. His stomach is colder than before. He can smell the sharp tang and knows exactly what it will feel like going down.

It will feel like bliss. It will feel like a couple hours of letting go and being free of the incessant fire in his mouth for once.

It will feel like warmth in his cold body

Mest grasps it firmly and takes a sip. Then another. And then another. He doesn't notice he is sucking for spare drops until Porlyusica snatches it out of his grasp and stands up. "I'll be back," she says. "We need more booze."

_Yes,_ Mest thinks tiredly.  _We really, really do._

* * *

_Whether or not the moon shines,_

_May our love stay alive forever._

_Whether or not I exist in this world,_

_Whether or not you exist in this world,_

_May our love stay alive forever._

_-Salamat_


	3. Cell Tower

_The rain of this season,_

_The water of this rain,_

_The droplets of water,_

_They're searching for you._

_This desire to meet,_

_This desire is old._

_My story completes only through you._

_-Baarish_

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Friday, October 15th, X792.**

**11:55 AM.**

The second Plue bursts through the doors, Cobra knows something is wrong.

"Puuun!" the spirit wails to anyone who will listen. "Puun! Puun, puuun!"

"What is it?" Cobra asks sharply. The Guild falls into a hush. It isn't often that Lucy lets the Canis Minor roam around on its own. In fact, she  _never_  lets Plue out of sight. Cobra exchanges a look with Midnight. The reflector mage is already on his feet and ready to go. That's the nice thing about Midnight; he just  _understands._

"Puun!" Plue waves his hands animatedly. "Puun, puuun!"

"Should we get him a chalkboard?" Mira asks. Cobra shakes his head. "Takes too long to spell. We need something faster."

Kinana perks up. "Words! Plue, does this have to do with Lucy?"

Plue nods vehemently.

"Is Luce in trouble?" Natsu demands from his corner where he has Gray still locked in a semi-loose chokehold. The Ice Mage is too concerned with the situation at hand to break free. Plue nods again.

"What kind?" Erza presses. "New enemy? Was it a Guild?" Plue shakes his head. "Old enemy from a Guild?"

Plue pauses. "Puun."

"Half right," Cobra says. "That's all I need to know. Which way?"

Plue bolts for the doors and waves his little paw. He will lead them there, then. Cobra clears the room in three quick strides, Midnight on his heels, and turns abruptly. "The rest of you stay here. We can't have a stampede out on the streets. Salamander and Stripper go hunt down the amnesiac. Emo prince, little dragon, you're with me. I-"

Cobra's hand suddenly lashes out to grab the door frame to keep himself from stumbling. There are absolutely no words to describe the sudden wave of terror and pain that hits him. Little Erik from the Tower dominates his thoughts right now and little Erik knows that when someone is in this much pain it means he's next and he needs to  _hide_  and  _run away_  and make himself as small as possible so no one knows he exists because if he doesn't exist then no one can hurt him. But little Erik from the Tower was dead and all that is left is Cobra, and the only thing Cobra knows to do is fight until the threat is eliminated.

"What the fuck is that?" Laxus mutters from the second floor. Cobra's eye swivels up and pins him with the most serious gaze he can muster. "You can feel it?"

"Feels like the night of the Dragon Festival," Sting says. Beside him, pale as the napkin he is gripping, Rogue nods in slow agreement. Cobra furrows his brow. While he hadn't been all too involved with the main mess during the Festival, he's heard a lot of things about it from the others - their souls, to be exact - and, out of respect for Rogue, Cobra never pries for details (he is cruel, but even he has his limits). What he does know, however, is that the Shadow Slayer is too close to the incident for his liking, and if this is some freak recurrence then Rogue won't be able to stay rational and Cobra needs  _rational_.

"Change of plans," Cobra says shortly. "Rogue, you're staying here and running base. Laxus, Wendy, let's go."

"I can handle it," Rogue says coldly. "Do not treat me like I am a child."

"Fine, you wanna be treated like an adult? Fine. You're still a traumatized mess no matter how hard you try to play it off and I don't need to be dealing with you having a panic attack in the corner when we might be facing off against your evil twin again. Happy?" Rogue purses his lips but says nothing. Cobra nods. "Right. We're wasting time, let's go."

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**12:03 AM.**

Laxus offers to lightning-teleport them there individually but Cobra declines on the grounds of practicality. If the deluded freak (as Future Rogue has been christened in the thirty seconds after they'd exited the Guild) is present then leaving one person behind to grab the rest is tantamount to suicide. Jogging is slower, but safer.

"Cobra," Laxus says quietly as he catches up to him. "Lucy."

"What about her?"

"There's a chance she may have walked into this," Laxus says.

"I know. She's fought him once before, she'll do it again." Cobra shakes his head. "I don't hear her anywhere near this, though."

"Doesn't mean she's not involved." Cobra turns his head fully, pinning his fellow second-gen with a chilling glare. "Do you think I can't tell my girlfriend's soul apart from the millions out there?"

"Have you ever heard her soul in genuine distress?" Laxus challenges. Cobra grinds his teeth sharply and speeds up.

"Guys!" Wendy shouts. "Look!" She points to the sky. A soft, radiant golden shimmer soars towards the sky in a thin column. Cobra stands still, frozen in place by the anguish and acceptance that pulses from the epicentre, each wave filling his chest with lead. His three teammates stand by in silence. To a degree, Laxus and Wendy can feel what he is feeling. Not the exact emotions, but their heightened senses can probably pick up on the general sentiment and are thus paralyzed by it. Midnight can't feel any of it, but he silently waits for them to get their bearings.

"What the fuck," Laxus says, rubbing his chest. "That was messed up."

Wendy wipes at her eyes. "It was so sad," she says softly. "It felt like a goodbye."

"Death," Midnight murmurs.  _Lucy_ , Midnight thinks. Laxus's comments from before ring in Cobra's head. What is it Wendy was always saying? N equals two, time to think it through? Cobra doesn't exactly have the necessary time to think through the statistics behind Lucy meeting the deluded freak for a second time and dying, but he does have his ears and his ears never lie.

He hears Lucy, Mest, and then nothing.

"Move!"

Wendy gets there first. Cobra catches up to her just as she starts inspecting the surrounding area for any clues. "I smell Future Rogue," she reports. "And Lucy and Mest."

"Except they're all gone," Laxus says. "Let's assume the golden light was Rogue leaving. Why would Mest grab Lucy and run?"

"Rogue travels by shadows," Midnight replies. "Not him. And Lucy could have been injured."

"No blood, no sign of a struggle," Wendy says. She jerks back suddenly, as if she'd just been hit. "But...during the festival...that same gold was how the future travellers...went back."

"So you're saying Rogue went back?" Cobra asks. "Why would he come here for two minutes and leave?"

"To take Lucy. Mest might have been collateral," Midnight puts out. This time it's Laxus who disagrees. "No. Lucy and Mest's trails are fresher."

"And there was a secondary pulse in the air. That's Mest's teleportation," Wendy says. "I've seen him do it so many times I know."

"If they went back to the Guild then they would have sent a messenger to tell us," Laxus says. Cobra nods absentmindedly. His mind is racing with plans and thoughts of Lucy. He can't concentrate if he's panicking over her so he pushes those feelings down with the semi-reassuring fact that Mest is with her and she'll be okay with a partner and focuses on planning. He is good at that.

"Laxus, go back to the Guild and give them a brief update. Split them up into squadrons, you know best how, then meet us at Lucy's place. Mest lives in the same complex so they might have gone there," Cobra orders. Laxus gives a short nod and disappears with a booming clap. Cobra turns to Wendy. "You have medical supplies?"

"Some in my bag." She touches the drawstrings. "I can stock up at Lucy and Mest's. I keep some extra stuff there."

"Good. Get what you can when we get there. Midnight, do a sweep, top to bottom of both their rooms."

"What will you be doing?"

His sole eye hardens. "Tracking Lucy."

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**12:13 AM.**

"I sent out five four-man cells and sent an alert to the other Guilds. Nothing specific, just that two of our members were missing and to be on the lookout." Laxus says. Cobra feels his eyes on the back of his head. "I told Rogue's team to head in the opposite direction of the scene. They won't be able to get his scent. Oh, and I separated Natsu, Gray, and Erza."

Cobra snorts. "Least we won't have to worry about the entire town being leveled in this mess. Go do something useful."

"Fuck you, too," Laxus calls as he goes to go join Wendy in the bathroom. Cobra closes his eye again, focusing on Lucy. Because he knows her soul best it'll be easier to get a general distance using her as a reference.

Tracking isn't as oversimplified as it is in those shitty movies Lucy likes watching. It's a lot more like cell towers. He sends out a ping, he'll get a subconscious ping back, and he'll work from there. Back during the Oracion Séis' glory days it was slightly more precise because he would use the Séis as the 'third tower' and pin down a closer location. Whoever was nearest got the pleasure of executing the job and the person. Using Mest as a 'third tower' will be useless because of how close he is to Lucy, so Cobra will have to settle for being less accurate.

Cobra searches deep in his soul for the bit of Lucy he'll use as the tag to find her. He visualizes little ribbons of his soul magic, silky and flowing, twirling as they search for her.  _Lucy, are you there?_  He asks with each meter the ribbons flew past.  _Answer me. Lucy, are you there?_

 _Erik_. There. So quiet he can barely hear it, but it's there. He focuses his magic in that direction, stretching the ribbons further and further and further and-

 _Erik_. That's his ping. The gentle bounce of her magic. Cobra bites his cheek and concentrates on the one ribbon that's registered Lucy. He's done the distance calculations before. This is no different.  _So you tell yourself._

"Got her," he snaps.  _I'm coming, Lucy._

"Where?" Midnight asks. Laxus raises an eyebrow. "Where have  _you_  been?"

"Checking the floor plans for any safe rooms they could have gone to."

"How did you wake up Hilda at this time of night for that?"

"I didn't." Midnight's dark lips curl up wickedly. "Who needs permission if she's never going to know?"

"If I did my math right, they're about ten kilometers East," Cobra says. Laxus starts. "That's the woods. Why would they go to the woods?"

"Granny Porly," Wendy breathes. Her brown eyes shine in horror. "Someone's hurt."

Cobra's heart seizes momentarily before he straightens up and exhales sharply. There are a thousand reasons they could have gone to Porlyusica's other than treatment and even if someone is hurt ( _but nobody is_ , he stresses) then they're in good hands. Losing his shit now won't save Lucy so he rotates his wrists and waits for them to crack and the tension to release.  _Calm, calm, calm, calm as an innocent fawn._  Sorano used to love repeating that before missions.

"Then we book it," Laxus says gravely. "I'll call off the search when we get confirmation." He pulls his phone and scrolls through his contacts, tapping one and pressing the device to his ears. "Kinana, it's Laxus. Cobra did a trace and we think they're at Granny Porly's. Keep that bit quiet, we don't need a mob at her place. Do me a favour and prep the infirmary. If anyone asks just say it's a precaution."

Wendy perks up. "Tell her to get four milligrams of ativan ready in case Lucy needs sedation. And get some IV's prepped. And-"

"Imagine you're getting ready for me returning from an S-class and throw in ativan," Laxus deadpans and hung up. Wendy looks the closest to annoyed as she's ever come.

"Let's get to Dragon Granny's," Cobra sighs. "This century would be preferable."

* * *

**Present Day**

**Eastern Magnolia Forest, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**1:02 AM.**

Cobra hates the woods. There are a million too many sounds to focus on and trying to tune them out is a lot like trying to plug a giant hole in a tank with matchsticks. It's easier now that he has something to focus all of his attention on but that doesn't mean he won't gripe about it.

"Is it possible to get West Nile out here?" Laxus slaps his neck yet again. "Wendy? Is it?"

"Maybe. I'd have to check the health department's findings for this term, but I doubt it. We would have heard it on the news." Laxus looks more disturbed than relieved at the news. "There is a vaccine for this, yeah?"

Wendy remains silent and steps over yet another thick root. If the situation were anything else, then Cobra might have laughed at the unease that spread across the normally stoic man's face. "Wendy?" Laxus calls again. "Hey, wait, is there? Wendy?"

"We should be there in another five minutes," Midnight tells Cobra. "Are you getting anything?"

The poison dragon slayer tilts his head. "Lucy's out. She's either asleep or sedated and I'm not getting anything."

"Have you tried Mest?" Cobra shakes his head. "If I lose Lucy we're screwed."

"We know where they are."

"We made a logical conclusion," Cobra corrects. "In reality, she could be anywhere in the same area. I lose Lucy, I lose my trace. Who knows if she'll ping back the second time."

"You have to give it a try," Midnight says. "It's a risk we have to take."

Cobra smiles grimly and points ahead. "Nope. Porly's ahoy."

It's always so odd dropping by the hermit-lady's house the few times he's been. Compared to the various modern structures of Magnolia that he's grown accustomed to, the odd shack Porlyusica resides in sticks out like a sore thumb in his mind. Not that he has any room to talk given that he vividly remembers living in a giant blue crystal-tower-thing at one point.

"There's a barrier," Laxus points out. He taps the barrier with his foot and watches as a ripple of purple runes flash in response. Cobra resists the urge to growl in frustration. Runes are a weak spot for him. He can't understand anything about them because that's always been more of Racer's thing. He regrets never taking him up on those rune dissolving lessons.

"I've been around Freed long enough to know a thing or two," Laxus offers. He nudges his foot again. "Those look a lot like your basic 'you can't come in' runes." He lifts his hand and hits the barrier in front of his face several times, watching carefully. "These are, uh...privacy ones. I have something similar. You can't listen in no matter what."

"How did I find Lucy, then?"

"Your connection must be pretty strong. I'm guessing you can't hear Granny or Mest?" At Cobra's nod, Laxus continues, "That's why. Lucy might be weak here because of this but you can still get a feel for her."

"Can you break these?" Midnight asks. Laxus clickes his tongue. "Nope. Not gonna try, either. Because.. " he hovers his index finger a little off the barrier and swings it around while mouthing something. Eventually, he pokes a spot and sighs when the runes grow a dark purple in response. "Because I was right. You mess up in the code and you mess up the runes. They'll default to intruder and set off booby traps."

"Paranoid bitch," Cobra hisses.

"And well within reason," Porlyusica sneers as she opens the front door. "So annoying brats like you learn to leave me alone. Wendy, get in and go to the back. Don't start anything until I get in."

Wendy's gone before the instructions are finished. Cobra crosses his arms and rises to his full 6'1. "And us?"

"Unless you can behave and avoid interrogating the Council boy then you're all staying out here," Porlyusica grouches. "No need to worry. Everyone is physically fine. Mostly."

"Who got hurt?" Cobra rotates his wrists.  _Calm, calm, calm, calm as an innocent fawn. Don't be Lucy, don't be Lucy, don't be Lucy, don't be Lucy-_

"The blonde and the Council boy are both fine," Porlyusica says. Relief sweeps through his chest just as the exhaustion from his search sets into his bones and turns them into metal weights. He's...tired. Worried. Tired and worried.

"Then who's hurt?" Midnight wonders. "You said that  _mostly_  everyone was physically fine. If Lucy and Mest are okay, who isn't?"

Pity clouds Porlyusica's eyes and she steps back to hold her door open for them. "You'd better come in. This...this is going to take a bit."

Cobra crosses the barrier, and he can hear  _everything._

For the first time in a long time, he wishes he can't.

* * *

_There is no one in between us,_

_Only you and I are here._

_Tell me, then, why is there distance between us?_

- _Baarish_


	4. Bones Don't Lie

_Our skies became one,_

_Like a dream, it has turned to smoke._

_Our skies became one,_

_Like breaths, it has spread in parts._

_Go wherever you will,_

_You will find only me._

_My shadows are made of you._

_I'm a planet now,_

_You're a planet, too._

_Now, we will meet where the stars do._

_-Saiyaara._

* * *

**Present Day**

**Eastern Magnolia Forest, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**1:05 AM.**

Wendy sieves the world into five compartments as she makes for the back room: she sees a broken table in the corner of her eye, hears three heartbeats (one a little faster than the others - an arrythmia?), tastes blood in the air ( _Mest's,_ a part of her responds,  _Granny lied, he's hurt_ ), smells so much she can only filter it enough to let her know there's someone severely sick in the back, and she feels  _heaviness_ in the air, like thick phlegm she can't scrape off. A cursory pulse of magic does nothing to peel it off her skin.

_The Eclipse Gate._

"Wendy," Mest greets her from his position as sentry by the back room. She crouches down before him and gives him a cursory scan. No gaping wounds, no head wounds, and no bloody clothes. Either Granny has patched him up or he's done a damn good job of hiding it from her.

"You're bleeding," Wendy says, summoning blue light to her hands. The boost of sensory capacity that her healing magic grants her hits her just as the stench of alcohol does. Her head shoots up. "You drank," she accuses.

"Guess I won't be getting that one year chip, huh?" He smiles sheepishly and holds out his hand. A cut across his palm bleeds sluggishly through a thin square of gauze, which she peels back to reveal a shallow gash that is near surgical in cleanliness. She closes the cut with one hand and presses the other to his liver to assess the damage; he's not had much, which is a small mercy for him because she's about to do him worse. Fury muddles all rational thought and has her magic sputtering out, but she can't find it in her to care. Mest  _swore_  to both her and Lahar that he would never drink again, that he would not so much as lick the foam off the top of beer or take a whiff of after-shave, and here he is smelling of expensive whiskey and regret.

He  _promised._

"Granny has banana bags in the back," Wendy announces as she rises. She doesn't offer him a hand up.

"I had  _one drink_ ," Mest stresses. "I'm not thiamine deficient."

"With  _your_ history, we can't be too sure." She flinches a little at how cold she sounds. She's being cruel but he  _deserves_ it. The banana bag won't do anything to speed up his sobriety - at the most it will help correct an electrolyte imbalance - nor will it rectify any severe chemical imbalances. What it  _will_ do is give her the immense satisfaction of watching him squirm when she sets up the I.V. line.

( _A little thiamine to lessen the chances of Korsakoff's,_ she frets on the inside,  _if he's slipped up now he's...he'll do it again.)_

"Fair enough," Mest says, though neither of them miss the way he fiddles with his rubber band. Wendy grasps the door handle and freezes when Mest grabs her wrist. "Hey, listen, you need to know beforehand. Lucy's not alone in there."

"I could sense a third heartbeat inside, who is it?"

Mest hesitates. "It...you have to stay calm, okay? And hear me out. Promise?"

 _So_ now  _a promise between us is worth something_? she wants to say, but she nods because she can't trust herself to speak. Not now.

"Future Rogue came back-"

 _Nononononononono._ Her lungs burn but she breathes in more and more, trying to yank out  _his_ scent from the mess of chemicals that mask it all. He can't be here, he  _can't_ because Natsu  _killed him_ , she saw the light that night - they  _all_ did. If he's back, if he's  _behind those doors_ , Wendy will  _kill him_. Spinning magic circles burst open at her feet and the tips of her hair go pink with Dragon Force. She'll kill him, she'll kill him,  _she's going to kill him-_!

"And he left Lucy with his kid. The one he had with Future Lucy," Mest finishes hurriedly.

Abruptly, it all goes away.

" _What_?" Wendy demands. Her mind reels with timelines and scenarios, but the dominant train of thought is  _they had a kid together_. That alone brings to light several important revelations, the primary of which are  _Future Rogue killed his lover_ and  _Lucy watched her Future Self be killed by_ her  _Future Lover._

The irony of the Sky Dragon Slayer being unable to breathe is not lost upon her as she leans against the door for support. Mest's hand around her wrist is a comforting warmth that breaks the numbing cold that's swept through her. The edges of her eyes throb and prick with tears that refuse to fall as her body pours all its energy into keeping her heartbeat steady and her chest rising and falling. How can this be  _happening_? Haven't they been through enough? Witnessed so much death and loss? The worn-thin fabric of their lives has only been stitched back together and it's being shred before the needle has been put down.

Wendy doesn't think they'll be able to survive this tear.

"Her name's Cynthia Cheney. Lucy didn't give us any details beyond that before passing out, but Porlyusica says this girl is  _fucked_. Looks like she's been through a war-zone, she's on a million I.V. lines," Mest reports. Wendy exhales shakily and runs a trembling hand through her short hair. She can't afford to freak out, not now. Granny said to wait, but…

She steels herself and stands up straight. Triage first, panic later. She opens the door, slips on her white coat and stethoscope, and snaps on a pair of latex gloves. "Lucy's condition?"

"She's in shock but sleeping it off. No injuries, nothing you can do," Mest reports. "Do you want me to check her head for anything?"

"All the information you can get about her time with Future Rogue," Wendy says. "Wait, let me banana bag you first."

She sets up the primary line on the back of his palm and goes through the motions of spiking the bag. A few squeezes of the drip chamber until it's half full and she loosens the roller clamp to flush the line and remove air bubbles (a short tap of her magic on top of it, just to be sure). She pops the cap off and connects the I.V. lines, and then holds out the bag. "You wanna hold it or should I put it on a pole?"

"I'll hold it, you go deal with Cynthia."

Wendy's first order of business is collecting samples for later analysis. There's a plethora of information to be gained from the little things Cynthia has picked up in  _that_ timeline. She carefully scrapes under all her nails and slides the grime from underneath into four labeled envelopes:  _left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot._ Fingerprints on cards are stapled to the back. Methodically, she reaches for the blood basket. Finding a vein on her is going to be  _impossible_  but if Granny could find some for the I.V's, so can she. Elbows are out, seeing as those are occupied, but her stick-thin wrists are free for the taking.

Wendy has always been on the extremely skinny side, but even she has trouble remembering if her wrists were as thin as this girl's at her approximate age.

She takes five bottles for now. She doesn't want to risk anything by taking any more. Hair samples are next; while Wendy doubts the girl has been taking hard drugs, heavy metal poisoning is something she can't afford to rule out. She gently rips off a few strands of thinning hair ( _iron deficiency, she needs supplements_ ) and tucks those in another envelope. As she swabs her mouth with a Q-tip, Wendy takes note of the dentition present before her. Enamel hypoplasia ( _vitamin A and D deficiency_ ) is the most prominent issue before her, but a brief probe of her mouth with her magic yields weak salivary glands (definitely  _iron deficient_ ) and some gum scarring ( _vitamin C_ ). Her teeth are oddly erupted, which, in conjunction with the above only confirm her suspicions -  _severe_ malnutrition. She seals the Q-tip and places it in the large plastic bag with the others. A urine sample will come later when she's awake.

Wendy flexes her fingers and wills her magic to life.

A cursory exploratory scan will never beat a full range of tests and scans, but with no CT or MRI on hand, and not enough time and equipment to do a full surgical sieve, Wendy will have to settle for what she can get in the next couple minutes.

Her first line of business is ruling out anything glaringly obvious. Granny has already set up a simple I.V. line for electrolytes to correct the surface metabolic issue. She'll have to set one up for the vitamin and mineral deficiencies later. Wendy hovers over Cynthia's chest, probing her lungs; there's some light scarring to them that indicates chronic lung infections. Layer after thin layer of healing magic molds itself on top of the hardened tissue, at which point Wendy  _pushes_. Under the sheer force of her magic, bit by bit, the scar tissue breaks into a million microscopic pieces that she suspends in place while her other hand gently coaxes the raw, healthy tissue beneath to speed up in healing. The whole process, including pulling out the damaged tissue through her mouth, takes fifteen minutes.

 _You're getting faster_.

There's still some inflammation about her lungs and the underlying infection lurks untreated so she makes a mental note to start her on a broad-spectrum antibiotic to hit that  _and_ whatever nasties lurk about the rest of her system. Amoxicillin or Ampicillin are her two best bets. Degenerative disorders are both unlikely and beyond her purview at the moment, as are neoplastic syndromes. There's no major, daunting physical trauma to deal with.

She pauses for a second, and then goes for the bones.

There is something eerily beautiful about the way the human body can store a lifetime of information in its smallest components. No matter how many times cells shed anew, there are markers permanently etched into the tiniest bits of  _you_. A person's whole life story can be derived from the way bones have grown and isotopes have settled in teeth. Coiled DNA splits and splits and  _splits_ , and never falters in its ability to tell her about the person and their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents  _ad infinitum_.

Her epiphyseal plates obviously have yet to fuse, but the growth pattern is  _off_. If Cynthia was five or six this would have been in line with her development but the cellular structure of the plate best matches up with someone who's seven, approaching  _eight_. Wendy reaches for her thin wrist to check the fusion of the small bones and bites her cheek. The gaps are a little wider than she would have liked but there's no use in arguing with it - bones don't lie. She's seven.

What sends a chill down her spine next isn't the remodeled fractures - the thick triangles of a butterfly fragment from an injury at four, a thin crack on her left femur at five, diagonal fracture across three ribs at five, broken wrist at five, and poorly healed fractures on her upper arms at age six - but the  _healing pattern_ of those fractures because she  _developed that method of remodeling_. Traces of her magic still flutter within the bones, sending tingles through her fingers as they readily accept the thrum of her power.

Except for the ones at age six and above. Those healed naturally.

Fixing the remodeling of those injuries is a task that requires no attention from her, which is a good thing because all of that is being diverted to keeping her standing.

It isn't the coiled DNA that tells Wendy her fate in that timeline - no, that is reserved for the girl and her kin. It's the shoddy remodeling that spells it out for her because if she'd been around to heal everything up until the age of six, then her upper arms should be responding to her magic like the other bones are; instead, all there is is radio silence.

Future Wendy died approximately six years into the war. One year short of Future Rogue's attack.

What good is she? If everyone else died that means she couldn't save them. If she died that means she couldn't save  _herself_. Either way, what use is Dragon Slaying magic and the healing magic she so covets if it fails her and her loved ones in the end? She can fix bones and knit together muscle but she can't look a Dragon in the eye without backup. Even during her battle against Zirconis she needed Laxus as her heavy hitter. She's a  _healer_ and a  _fighter_ , dammit, she has the advantage.  _The hands that heal are the deadliest in warfare_. It's what Grandeeney and Porlyusica hammered into her head and it's what she tells herself every time she's up to bat, but without fail she's always on the sidelines waiting for help.

Her guts constrict painfully.  _Did I die waiting for help that would never come?_

"What's the status?" Mest breaks her reverie. "You good? Your hands are trembling."

Wendy stares at her hands in detached surprise. Blood dripdrip _drips_ over the purple edges of crescent moons on the skin of her palms. The crimson liquid trickles across the crevices of her palms, sliding down established lines that arc up and down her hand. She watches one drop stray off path and bisect the line that swoops in a semi-circle around her thumb and ends at her wrist. For all she's worth, she can't even keep herself from being hurt.

"She's...in bad shape, but fixable," Wendy reports, stuffing her hands into the coat's deep pockets and wiping the blood off discreetly. She can clean them properly with rubbing alcohol when she goes to find an appropriate dosage of antibiotics for the girl. Cynthia.

"That's good," Mest says. He holds up his banana bag and Wendy jerks back a little when she realizes how much of it is gone.

"How long was I…?"

"An hour and a half, give or take." He shrugs. An hour and a half for a basic scan.  _Pathetic._

"They haven't come bursting through yet?" Wendy eyes the door. Cobra should have been right on her heels and by Lucy's bedside. Right now they're in the living room talking too quietly for her to decipher anything beyond the muffled pitches that indicate a steady conversation between Cobra, Laxus, and Granny.

"It took me forty-five minutes to get  _her_ all caught up. I slipped out a half-hour ago to go and check on them. She's keeping them busy, talking in circles and all that," Mest says, waving a hand dismissively. His dark green eyes flicker to her pockets. "I say we have twenty minutes before she runs out of excuses. Are you okay?"

"I died six years into the future." Saying it out loud only makes it more real, only winds the wrench in her gut tight enough until something  _explodes_. The temporary relief from the coil within her is swept away by pulses of agony that send her to her knees. She presses her bloody hands to her mouth and holds in a sob. She  _died_. How does Lucy live like this? If just the knowledge that her life was cut so short has her in this state, how does Lucy go on after  _watching_ her Future Self die? Holding her in her arms as she bled out?

She dieddied _died_ and it's her own damn fault for not being strong enough.

"How do-? Nevermind, I don't care," Mest declares. He falls down beside her and Wendy finds herself crushed to his chest with the banana bag pressed into her neck. "Cry. I'll Direct Line us out of here if they burst in, don't worry."

"It's just - h-how do-? I  _kn-knew_ I did but I can't-!"

"There's a part of you that always knew but having it confirmed is just... _weird_."

He knows, too. He's had the same revelation she's undergoing. There is some comfort in knowing that she's not alone, that one of her closest friends is in the same place she is. As of right now, they're the only two members of a special club of mages who are well aware of their fate in an alternate timeline, but have been forced to confront that ugly reality sooner than they'd like to admit.

"Do you think we suffered?" Wendy whispers, half-afraid that saying it any louder will summon the demon that knows of  _that_ Wendy's fate. "Did we die alone?"

"I don't know," Mest replies honestly. "But we died protecting something, didn't we? Fairy Tail. That makes it worth it."

_Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dumba-dumba-dumba-dum._

_But you don't believe that, do you?_

* * *

_After meeting you, it has so happened,_

_An unfulfilled wish has been completed._

_As you left, you took with you,_

_Every reason for me to live._

_-Saiyaara._


	5. QRS Complex

_Without you, what is mine,_  
That I listen to, that I speak to?  
Without you, what do I have in me,  
Which I should live for, in which to live?  
In you alone my life is there,  
In a moment of your life, my centuries exist.  
Without you, I am a desert,  
Without you, I am not even a drop.

_-Tu Jo Hai To Main Hoon_

* * *

**Future Timeline.**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Wednesday, October 16th, X800.**

**1:22 AM.**

_He registers pain before anything else._

_Sharpness that digs into him from the outside and within. He rides out the waves of pain, each one more powerful than the last, as he tries to remember how to move. Muscles have to_ contract  _to to that, tendons have to_ pull _, but he doesn't know_ how _. It's all he can do to keep his chest rising and falling - in, in, in, in, stop, stop, stop, out, out, out, out, out, out, out. Repeat. He focuses on that instead of the pain._

_In, in, in, in, stop, stop, stop, out, out, out, out, out, out, out._

_Repeat._

_A twitch. He can twitch his fingers. With less grace than a newborn, he familiarizes himself with what little he can reach. Rough, hard, grating on his nails. Rock. He's on top of rock. Many rocks, which explains the deeper pains dispersed below him. He suspects that one has pierced his abdomen._

_This isn't Heaven, but he's not entirely sure this is Hell, either._

_He opens his eye and is met with a blood red sky and the cries of clashing dragons above him._

_He's back._

" _...how…?" he mouths. Talking is too painful. His throat refuses to constrict to allow it. Air is a precious resource and his body is running on primal instinct alone, greedily taking in as much as he can._

_He struggles to keep his racing heart steady. A faster heart means more bloodflow which means he'll bleed out before he's able to find safety. He needs safety. They all need safety. Who's left? Who needs safety? He needs safety. That sounds nice. Safety. What is safety? It feels warm, he thinks, and he's oh-so-cold._

_How is he_ back _? Natsu...he remembers the Natsu of_ that  _timeline, the one he tried to destroy, killing him. Or, he_ thinks  _he killed him. His memories are a jumble of screams and golden light calling him back. Golden light...Lucy._

"Destiny is inescapable. The living will live. The dead will die. The person who closes the portal will close the portal. No matter what happens, as long as they're alive."

"I don't really follow you, but who is this person that interferes?"

"You...Lucy Heartfilia!"

 _Oh,_ God _, what has he_ done _?_

_His throat tightens, not so he can vocalize his anguish, but so it can force up the bile in his stomach. His jaw screams in agony as vomit, dark and ugly and tinged with blood, spews forth and coats the rocks and the side of his face, over and over and over again, and when his stomach is well and truly empty, all that comes out is the blood in his lungs._

_He wishes he was on his back for this, so he could asphyxiate on it and_ die  _for real this time._

"Rogue Cheney _," a disembodied voice echoes around him. No. Disembodied_ voices.  _More than one. They're everywhere. He's surrounded. He's surrounded and he can't even fight back._

_He doesn't want to._

" _Wh-who are y-y-you?" he spits out of clenched teeth, rich red blood painting his words. "Wh-wh-what do y-you w-w-w-want?"_

"We are the Fates. We come to you with a proposition."

" _I ref-f-fuse. I'm g-going to d-d-die h-here. I w-w-want to d-d-die."_

"Your daughter should not bear the brunt of your mistakes, should she?"

_Daughter. He has a daughter. He and Lucy have a daughter._

_Cynthia._

" _Wh-what do y-you w-w-want me t-to do?"_

* * *

**Present Day**

**Eastern Magnolia Forest, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**3:00 AM.**

Laxus waits until Wendy's heartbeat reaches a steady  _ba-dumba-dumba-um_  that's only a little faster than her baseline before he knocks on the door.

"Come in." He hears her murmur. There's a brief scuffle behind the door that he recognizes as people standing up and moving about. He gives them another ten seconds to adjust and wipe away any stray tears, and then enters as quietly as he can.

"How are they?" Laxus asks, though he already knows the answer:  _terrible_. It doesn't take a doctor to see it, but the backing of one is never a bad thing.

"Lucy's asleep. She's fine physically but mentally…" Mest wrinkles his nose. "I don't like what I'm seeing. Her amygdala's acting up pretty hard."

"The amygdala's implicated in linking emotions to memories, so she's likely undergoing a flashback of sorts, reliving her time with Future Rogue," Wendy explains. Laxus's brow furrows, not at what she's saying but  _how_ she's saying it. He's never heard Wendy this morose before. The sky slayer inhales shakily and continues, eyeing the girl on the other cot. "This is Cynthia Cheney. She's not doing well physically, but I'm going to fix her. Mentally...beyond my purview. We just have to wait for her to wake up on her own time. Any sooner would be torture."

Laxus nods, following her gaze to the girl. He slips on his 'deep thinking face', the one he knows that the other two have seen him don in serious situations. Predictably, they shut up and give him space to mull over the situation. He feels a twinge of guilt for duping them; this particular trick of his doesn't require as much concentration as it did fifteen years ago but the less he's disturbed the better.

Measuring skin conductance isn't the same as reading minds but Laxus has refined it to an art form at this point. The read on the room isn't pleasant. The girl is understandably on edge, even while asleep - Erza had been the same back when she'd first joined Fairy Tail. Mest's is...blocked, somehow, or a little out of whack. The banana bag in his hand clues him in and Laxus sighs internally. He'd been doing so well, too. His eyes flick over to Wendy, who's in the process of administering medication to the girl. She does a fine job of keeping her face impassive but her skin is positively  _skittering_. He can't pin down one emotion: terror, self-loathing, fear, sadness, a weak sense of determination. He makes a note to have a chat with her later on, slayer to slayer. No. Friend to friend. This isn't something  _that_ kind if camaraderie will be able to solve. He turns to Lucy and sighs once again. There's only  _one_ emotion raging here.

Fear.

"How long's she been asleep?" Laxus jerks his head towards the Celestial Mage.

"Three hours, give or take," Mest says.

"Can you wake her up?" Laxus asks. Wendy starts, the first real change in mental state she's had in a half hour if he's correct.

"Granny used a benzodiazepine to put her to sleep, so if I can find some flumazenil then yes," Wendy replies, her eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Why? Lucy needs to rest."

"Wait, Granny did? That cheater! No wonder she knew when Lucy conked out. Here I thought she had super senses or something…" Mest pouts. Wendy giggles in response, shaking her head as she goes on to explain the effects and uses of benzos to the former councilman. Laxus watches them both with a clinical eye, but hones in on Wendy specifically. Her conductance is less skittish now, something that eases his mind. He's always been rather fond of the youngest slayer, taken her under his wing like an older brother, so seeing her in this state of...chaos, is the only word for it, has every inch of his being prickling to eliminate the threat.

Ironic, really. He's the biggest, baddest mage in the  _country_  but this is one thing a Thunder Palace can't fix. Not for the first time, Laxus curses his stunted emotional growth. He's always relied on others to fill that gap for him, using his reputation as a buffer to cover for his one weakness - nobody is willing to approach  _the_ legendary Laxus Dreyar, either out of fear or respect, and Laxus Dreyar is unwilling to approach anybody, mostly out of fear. Emotions...they aren't his forte. Even now, the thought of waking Lucy up and asking her how she's doing sends a cold spot blooming through his chest and down his veins.

_I don't have a bandaid big enough to slap on this shit._

By the time Wendy has finished her shpeel on the pros and cons of benzos, Laxus is (mostly) collected and (mostly) ready to face the choir.

"I need to talk to her about the incident and get a timeline," Laxus says, holding a hand up at their protests. "Yeah, I know. But the sooner the better. Then she can go back to sleep, I'll give her the benzos myself."

He might take some himself after. He has a feeling he'll need it.

Though she looks ready to protest the whole while, Wendy dutifully gets the flumazenil and injects it into Lucy's central line. Laxus gives Mest a pointed look, one that says 'scram, but stick around for later', and he touches Wendy's elbow to Direct Line them out. They appear in the living room a moment later, leaving Laxus to take a seat next to Lucy's bed and monitor her until she rouses.

Her heartrate monitor dutifully maps out the spikes and bumps of her heartbeat. Bump, line, dip, spike, dip, up, line, bump. Bump, line, dip, spike, dip, up, line, bump. Over and over, a textbook perfect example of a heartbeat, not a line out of place, not an inch too close or too far.  _Perfect_. His own heart clenches painfully. Is this the last time it's ever going to be so calm for her? He digs his fingers into the mattress to keep himself from administering the benzodiazepine again, just to let her live in oblivion for a little longer. He's Fairy Tail's next Master, for crying out loud. He has a  _duty_ to keep her safe, even from herself.

But how long can he shield her for? A day? A week? Should he put her in a coma if it means she never has to face reality? Should  _everyone_ be put in a coma, too? Should those who know about the girl have their memories wiped? Life will be easier that way. If the girl never existed. He bites the corner of his lip, forcing back a bittersweet smile. How many years of his own youth were spent telling himself that life would be easier if he ceased to exist? Too many to count.

There's a sudden spike in her heartbeat that snaps him out of it. He remains perfectly still as Lucy gathers her bearings and sits up in bed. His eyes follow hers as they move about the room, familiarizing herself with the area as her mind comes to grips with it all. When the spikes come faster, he clears his throat and brushes Lucy's knuckles.

"Hey. You know where you are?"

"Porlyusica's," Lucy whispers. "Mest brought me and…"

"Cynthia," Laxus supplies. Lucy flinches back, as if he'd just pulled a punch an inch away from her nose.

"Who told you? I told Mest that...I couldn't. Not now."

"Plue came running for us," Laxus explains. There's a brief touch of calm to her conductance at the mention of her spirit, so he latches onto that. "He was very brave. Led a recon team all the way to you."

Lucy smiles faintly. "That's my Plue. Where is he now?"

"Went back to the spirit world before we entered the forest. You've been out for three hours, just so you know." Laxus's fingers drift down her hand and curl around her wrist gently, half a show of compassion, half a private assessment of what's going on within her. His index finger presses down on her pulse almost imperceptibly. All it takes is a gentle coax on his end and her circulatory system willingly allows his magic to probe her heart. The nodes there are firing in burst panics, willing the muscle fibers to squeeze tighter and tighter and  _tighter_ so she has the blood necessary to  _fight_.

"Hey, Lucy," Laxus says, reaching up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. His hand stays there, pressed against her skull, hiding barely-there pulses of electricity with the scratch of his nails against her skin. Wendy's shown him the amydgala and hippocampus on a diagram before, so it's just a matter of making sure his magic hits those neurons only. The effect is instantaneous - Lucy's entire  _being_ unclenches and her heart rate drops down to a comfortable 65 beats per minute.

Bump, line, dip, spike, dip, up, line, bump.

Perfect.

"Did Future Rogue tell you how he got here?" Laxus presses. "The sooner we know the faster we can figure out what to do next."

Lucy's eyebrows furrow deeply. "He mentioned...Fate? He said he had a chance to fulfil one last promise. Or something."

"Fate…?" Laxus muses, leaning back in his seat. His status as an S-Class mage has sent him around the country and across borders into lands that are rich with texts that Magnolia can't offer. A quick trip down memory lane yields no specific mention of 'Fate' as an entity or magic, but he figures Freed or Levy might have a better idea of what to look for.

The concept of  _Fate_...Laxus has always found great amusement in deriding those who believe in such nonsense. Fate, destiny, divine providence, call it what you will, but the notion that some higher being has scripted it all and there's nothing to do but throw in the towel and obey it is hot bullshit. Destiny is for people too weak, too lazy, too  _scared_ to stand up and fight for themselves; the universe itself is such that it will always tend to follow the path of least resistance - why should humans be any different? But there are always  _exceptions_ to the rule. Laxus is one of them. Destiny did not demand he lead civil war in his Guild, and it did not demand his exile. His choices were his own and his choices are what shape the future. The one  _he_ is in control of.

If there  _is_ such a thing as Fate, Laxus feels comfortable with the idea of punching it out.

"Yeah, it made no sense. I'm just...so confused, I thought he died?" Lucy says, turning her anxious brown eyes his way. She fiddles with the tape holding down her IV, picking at the curling corners. "How did he bring her here? Were he and Future Lucy even from the same timeline? He didn't seem to recognize her when…she didn't either."

"Psychosis probably kept him from realizing what was going on. As for her...repression? Who knows. I  _do_ think they were from the same timeline, though. It would make the most sense. Having  _two_ separate entities from similar timelines at the same place at once, only for one to murder the other? Statistically unlikely. But, of course, that's why I'm here," Laxus says, nodding at the pouch on her hip. "You've got the most organic connection to space-time. That spirit of yours, Crux...maybe he can explain."

Lucy pulls out the key with shaky hands and extends it in an arc away from her. "Open, Gate of the Southern Cross."

"Miss Lucy," Crux wheezes in greeting once the smoke of his arrival settles. "Your magic stores are low. I can send Leo-"

"No, Grandpa Crux. We need  _you_ ," Lucy says with a tight smile. Laxus raises an eyebrow at the title she's bestowed the spirit.  _Grandpa Crux_...she really  _does_ go above and beyond for them.

"How can I be of assistance?"

"Laxus and I were wondering...could you explain a timeline issue? How is it possible for Future Rogue to be back if his timeline doesn't exist anymore?"

"How's he back if we killed him?" Laxus supplies. "We destroyed that Eclipse Gate, how is that timeline still there?"

Crux falls silent, hunching over as much as his metal frame permits him to. A small bubble at his nose expands and contracts with every rattling breath he takes. Is it possible for a spirit to die of lung complications? Hell, can non-humanesque spirits even  _have_ lung complications? There's a real danger of the cross falling over and hitting the bed. Is it a concussion if the metal of his head dents?

"Is he  _asleep_?" Laxus whispers.

"It's his process," Lucy replies.

" _Yo!_ " Crux shouts suddenly. Laxus slowly unhooks his fingers from the plastic armrest, flexing each and every one to make sure he didn't accidentally fracture a finger. Though his eyes are glued to Crux, just like Lucy's, the rest of his senses are devoted to cataloguing the girl's reaction. Whatever they have her on isn't strong enough - her heart should not have reacted this strongly to an exclamation like that while sedated. She shouldn't be  _aware_ of her surroundings.

Laxus needs to figure this out  _now._

"I will do my best to explain this, Miss Lucy," Crux says. "As you know, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. The same logic applies to timelines. There are a million different timelines that exist. They can differ by something as small as your haircut, or something as large as the apocalypse. To put it as simply as I can, the timeline with Future Rogue never ceased to exist. It continues to live on, even if it's in utter chaos with no inhabitants but the dragons. When Natsu 'killed' him, he was merely sent back to his own timeline, whereupon  _something_ happened to send him back here."

"What do you know about Fate?" Laxus asks. His leg is bouncing. He needs to stop doing that.

"It's an untouchable entity," Crux murmurs. "I will have to do more research and compile it for you."

"Thank you, Crux," Lucy says softly, dismissing him with a wave of her key. The nail of her thumb scratches over the intricate curves of the key, looping back up once she reaches the end. "So...there's a timeline where this never happened."

"There's one where I was successful in the coup, too," Laxus retorts. "What's your point?"

"Just that...there's at least one timeline where my life is stable. For once."

Laxus bites back a sigh at that.  _God_ he hates dealing with emotions. This isn't a member of the Raijinshuu or one of the older members of the Guild who can handle his abrasiveness. On top of that, there's the emotional trauma to juggle. Fucking shit. He should call Mest. Or Erik. Mest would be better for easing her mind through this, but Erik would be better for her soul. Laxus is good for  _neither_ of those things.

"There's no such thing as stability in life, Lucy," Laxus begins, his gaze pointedly fixed on the frayed ends of his pants. "You know what entropy is. The universe tends towards chaos. It might not be this bad in some other timelines, but you know damn well you're better off here than in others. This is  _bad_ , but...you've been through worse." He smiles weakly. "What's a random kid compared to being sacrificed to a clock?"

His crappy attempt at lightening the mood bounces off her like Midnight's reflector magic. Laxus can't help but cringe inwardly. This will be the  _last_ time he will  _ever_ try and play the role of comforter. He's not good at it at all.

"Why do these things keep happening to us?" Lucy whispers, staring at the roof and blinking rapidly to abate the tears. She can't do much to stop her lips from wobbling with her words, or keep the hitching whine out of her voice, try as she might. "Haven't we suffered enough? Every single  _time_ we finally achieve  _peace_ , something comes along to screw it up. Each time worse than the last.  _Why_?"

"I don't know, Lucy," Laxus replies, slipping the syringe of the benzodiazepine into her IV's injection port and pressing down on the plunger. "I don't know."

Her eyes slide shut and she slumps forward into his waiting arms. He lies her back down and arranges the blankets around her, lying her arms across her stomach and tilting her head to the side. He pats her face dry and pushes her bangs away. She looks peaceful. He commits the image to memory because he's not sure he's  _ever_ going to see her like this again.

Then, Laxus does what he does best when faced with things like this.

He leaves.

_Bump, line, dip, spike, dip, up, line, bump._

_Perfect._

* * *

_You are the relief on my face._  
I, too, am in your hands,  
like fate, scattered.  
You are my soul,  
I live when I can touch you.  
Whenever I see myself,  
Even within myself, I feel like you.

_-Tu Jo Hai To Main Hoon_


	6. Grounded

_My sky looks for your earth._  
You are needed for every shortcoming of mine.  
If not on earth, then meet me in the sky,  
To live without you, O heart, is difficult.

_-Ae Dil Hai Mushkil_

* * *

**Future Timeline.**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, January 1st, X792.**

**2:42 AM.**

" _You don't seem the type to skip a celebration," Rogue says quietly. "Headache?"_

_He's ashamed to admit how amusing he finds her little jerk of surprise. Not a lot gets him to laugh, especially nowadays, but something about the little 'meep' she lets out, and the way her first instinct isn't to grab her keys or whip, but rather a downy pillow to chuck his way, has him ducking his head into the high collar of his cloak to mask his smile._

" _Rogue!" she says, dropping the pillow on top of her lap and pressing down on it hard. "I didn't see you there. Um, no, not a headache just…"_

" _Needed to get away from it?" he offers._

" _Yeah." She smiles gratefully, and pats a spot next to her. "Wanna sit?"_

_He sits down an inch or two away from where she indicated and tugs at his sleeves. Specks of blood dot the grey cloth, and for half a second he's tempted to ask her if she can make a constellation out of them._

" _They had you fighting even today, huh?" Lucy asks._

_He smiles bitterly, openly. "They say you should always enter the New Year the way you want the year to go."_

_If Rogue is shocked by her turning his hand over to trace the calluses on his palm, he certainly doesn't_ show  _it. She can probably feel his heart up there it's beating so loud, but there's nothing he can do to stop that from happening. His eyes flick over to the boarded up window._

_Right._

" _So we're entering the New Year victoriously," Lucy announces, bumping their shoulders together. "Sounds good to me, don't you think?"_

 _Rogue can only nod at that. He can see why Natsu likes hanging around her so much - she's like a figurative portable ray of sunshine (the only reason he has to specify_ figurative  _here is because his best friend is a_ literal  _portable ray of sunshine)._

" _You working on something?" he asks after a beat. "I saw you had a notebook with you before I came in."_

" _Oh,_ that _." Lucy shakes her head and withdraws her hand (he's not sure what to make of the tingles she's left in her wake) to pull out a worn notebook from under the pillow. There's a pen clipped to the cover. "I was just...it's silly, nevermind."_

" _My best friend is_ Sting Eucliffe _," Rogue says as if that explains it all. It_ should  _to anyone who knows him._

 _She hesitates, tracing her name into well worn grooves on the cover. His ears prick a little when he hears the catch in her breath, over and over again, as if every time she builds up enough momentum to say something, she hits a wall. He knows the feeling all too well, but seeing her struggle to come out with it doesn't resonate with him well. It's like a sore spot in his chest he can't quite massage away. He's used to seeing her smiling and angry and everything else within that spectrum, but_ self-conscious  _and_ Lucy Heartfilia  _don't belong in the same sentence in his mind._

_He throws caution in the wind and bumps their shoulders together, lighter than when she did it. "I will not judge."_

" _It's...my novel," she says. "I was working on it before_ this  _and I was hoping to get it published within the next year or so, but…" she waves a hand around the makeshift bunk. "Guess that won't be happening. It's stupid, I just...figured I would keep working on it. In case, you know."_

" _Mind if I read it?" Rogue asks. For once, he's grateful for his long hair; it does wonders for hiding his blush (on one side of his face, anyway)._

" _I promised Levy she'd be the first to read it, but...I never said anything about her being the first to_ listen  _to it." Lucy smiles cheekily and cracks open the book, leaning over so he can see the little doodles she's made in the margins._

_She smells like sunshine._

* * *

**Present Day**

**Eastern Magnolia Forest, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**3:42 AM.**

"How bad is she?"

Laxus barely spares him a glance from where he's situated in the hallway, crouched halfway between  _her_ and the rest of the group. "Bad," he says, tracing idle patterns on his raised knee. "I had to put her under again."

Cobra braces his shoulder against the wall beside Laxus. The Lightning Slayer's soul is sizzling and sparking, whips and whorls of electricity that keep him from seeing anything for too long too clearly. He catches glimpses of things, but mostly he  _feels_ ; he feels the light thrum of Lucy's skin conductance, and his gut tightening with every quiet exchange after. He feels the echoes of heartache, and the desperation of a man with a crown too heavy for his head.

"I should let her sleep it off," Cobra says. "She's already been through enough."

Laxus finally looks up at him, blue-grey eyes unflinchingly cool. "You're a  _coward_."

 _That_ throws him for a loop. "What?"

"Don't use that as an excuse to avoid talking to her. If you're too freaked out to do it, just say so and sit down. It's not like that lot's coming our way anytime soon," Laxus says with a nod towards the living room. Cobra cracks the knuckles of each finger with his thumb, over and over again, using the pause as an excuse to gather his thoughts - ones he isn't entirely sure are safe from his fellow second-gen.

"I'm not freaked out," he replies in what he hopes is a rational, even tone. "I get that you're genetically predisposed to being a self-centered dick, but even you should be able to see that constantly waking her up and putting her to sleep isn't good for her physically. Or maybe I was wrong and you're too fucked up from all those years under Ivan's thumb."

The parent jab is low, even for  _him_  ( _especially_ for him), and entirely fruitless because it doesn't get the rise he was expecting. Laxus has certainly mellowed out over the years, but Ivan is still one of those 'don't touch with a ten foot pole' topics for anyone that isn't Makarov. Cobra was  _hoping_ for a sneer and jibe back that would eventually devolve into something  _other_ than  _that topic_ , but instead he gets a scoff and the radiating sense of disapproval.

"Don't try that shit with me. You're scared of this. You're scared because now there's something that connects Lucy and Rogue, and you're scared that that's going to take her away from you," Laxus says boldly. Cobra starts cracking the knuckles on his other hand, as if his fingers are dials that keep his heart from exploding within him. The beginnings of a panic attack creep around him in a haze that blankets him layer by layer, to the point of which he sees he's trembling before he can even feel it. He's  _trapped here_ and he needs to  _run_ far, far,  _far_ away from Laxus, this room, this house, that  _child_ , and  _Lucy_. It's too much, too fast, too soon, tootoo _too-_

"I'm not that selfish," he manages to hiss from between teeth that are clenched to keep them from chattering. "She's - I'm worried about her. Let her-"

"Sleep, I get it," Laxus snaps. "You know what's  _not_ selfish? Being scared of change, Erik. You're not  _good_ with it, and, believe it or not, you're not alone on that boat. You're allowed to feel freaked out because in some alternate timeline your girlfriend and her killer fell in love and had a kid. You don't know how to work it out, just  _say it_. Don't be a fucking coward and lie about it because you're too scared to admit to yourself that maybe, just maybe, there's a chance she'll leave you. Because if you admit it, then it means you think that this relationship was a fluke of nature and this is just gonna be a wake-up call for her."

Cobra gnashes his teeth together and slides down the wall, forcing his head between his legs and gripping his hair so tightly that he leaves bruises in his wake.

 _He's right, you know,_ his soul trills.  _He read you like an open book_.

It's true. It's true, and Cobra wants to stab himself in the gut because it's  _true_. Lucy was never part of the  _plan_ , the one that spelt out his future from the day Brain took him under his wing and endured very little changes through the shift in leaders. Cobra's  _plan_ has always been to live alone and die alone, because the more bonds he forms the less reason he has to  _let go_. The Seis  _get it_ because the Seis share his philosophy, and he was damn content to let it stay that way, but then along came Lucy with her summer-humid aura and tinkling wind chime soul, with a mind that fired a billion miles a second and ensnared him in its complex web of neurons and  _life_. She wasn't part of the  _plan_ , but somehow the  _plan_ stopped mattering and suddenly all there was was a blank slate of a future for  _them_  with the only certainty being the framework of  _Lucy._

If she leaves him (and really, what's stopping her - both he and Rogue have attempted to kill her in the past and she's fine with  _him),_ then all there is are the broken pieces of the  _plan_ , and Cobra doesn't think he's ever going to be ready to  _let go_ after her.

"She  _needs_ you," Laxus murmurs, placing a gentle hand on Cobra's head and carding his fingers through the maroon spikes. "Admitting you're scared isn't being selfish. Avoiding her because you're scared is."

Cobra picks up on the twinge of...guilt? Hypocrisy? Whatever it is, it hits Laxus's soul just long enough that his magic has a chance to bypass the careful guards of his soul to  _hearseefeel_  everything that happened before.

_Awake, panicking, needs to calm down, no medication, what to do, what to do, amydgala and hippocampus, calmcalmcalm. Good. Calm._

_Fate, Crux, Cynthia, Timelines._

_Emotions, not good at those, too many tears, what to do, what to do, need to save her from herself, need to save them all. Please stop, please stop, what do I do, what do I do, what do I_ do-!

_Bump, line, dip, spike, dip, up, line, bump._

_Perfect._

"Easier to keep them all in comas, huh?" Cobra asks softly, turning his head to meet Laxus's pained eyes. The older Slayer doesn't respond. instead, he folds his arms over his chest and stares ahead resolutely. A muscle in his jaw twitches under the pressure.

"Thanks, Laxus." Cobra rises and heads for the infirmary door. With his hand on the knob, he says, "You're allowed to be scared, too."

His whispered " _am I?_ " follows him into the room.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Fairy Tail Guild Hall**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**4:03 AM.**

Sting's group is the last to return from recon, just as the sheets spread before Rogue predicted.

"Team Sting is back," Mirajane announces, crossing their names off the list before her. "Thank you for your hard work. Food and drink are free, but go freshen up first."

Gray, Bixlow, and Minerva immediately head for the showers, greeting Team Erza just as they exit. Sting makes his way over to where Rogue's seated on the second floor and slides in next to him.

"They found Lucy-san," Sting reports, resting his head on Rogue's shoulder. "We got the message but Minerva wanted to investigate a little before we headed back."

"By the canal?" Rogue asks.  _Please don't let it be there, please, please, please._

"Yeah," Sting says, surprised. "Damn, you're good. You could smell us that far away?"

"Not  _you_ ," Rogue mutters, rubbing a shaky hand over the scarred bridge of his nose. The only reason he's half as put together as he is now is the alcohol coursing through his veins. Any less in his system and the stars dotting the corners of his eyes would have long since blinded him in panic.

Sting rubs small circles at the base of his neck, gradually shifting to his aching shoulder. The tension fades just a little bit, enough that he can look down at his fiance -  _his fiance_ \- and offer a tight smile.

"The Gate," Rogue begins, and Sting snaps up and away from him in response. The Shadow Slayer throws up a hand and continues. "You felt it, too. So did Cobra. It's why he sent me the other way."

Sting does little more than shift in his seat, but that's all Rogue needs to see to confirm his suspicions. It's not just his brain going into overdrive. The Gate - or something from it - is back, and right now the only people who know  _what_ are Lucy and Cobra's team.

He scowls. Cobra. He's always been rather indifferent to the man, respected him as a fellow Slayer, obviously, but their interactions have been limited to a nod here or there. Last night was arguably the longest they've ever had a discussion (if it could even be called that), and at the time Rogue had hoped they would soon settle into a more friendly camaraderie, the sort of which he shares with Laxus and Wendy, but now all he really wants to do is hit him. He's not a fucking  _child_. He doesn't need the kid gloves and the tip-toes, he needs  _answers_. Future Rogue is -  _was_ \- a beyond personal issue for him; where the  _fuck_ does Cobra get off on taking charge and injecting himself into a situation he only has a solid grasp on through bits of souls here and there?

If Future Rogue is back, this time Rogue will be the one to kill him for  _good_.

"We smelled... _him_ ," Sting says carefully, gauging his reaction. Rogue stays perfectly still, and the blond takes that as his cue to go on. "He's gone now. He was only really there for a few minutes if that."

"What?" Rogue asks, disbelief colouring his face. What in the hell had Future Rogue needed that he'd only been here a few minutes? And what did it have to do with Lucy?

Lucy.

The world is delayed. He wonders if this is how it feels for  _normal_ people; the cotton-stuffed ears, the lag in what he  _sees_ and what's  _happening_ , the sudden lack of proprioception. The only thing that's functional right now is his racing mind, and even that's having trouble coming to terms with his conclusion.

Did Future Rogue travel back in time to finish the job? Did he return to attempt to murder Lucy Heartfilia?

She's not  _dead_ ( _yet_ , the shadows murmur,  _but she can be she will be we did it we did it we)_. He knows she's not dead because if she was then Cobra would have killed him in a blind fury. The fugitive plays by the same code of ethics he does - an eye for an eye.

Lucy Heartfilia is not dead, but if she met Future Rogue a second time, she might as well be on the inside. Rogue would have to be bereft of all his senses to not notice the way she'd been flinching away from him the night before, as if every move he made was parallel to  _his_. That she made the concentrated effort to push past that and go so far as to make plans with him the next day...Rogue wonders how it's possible for one human to be so forgiving even when it burns them. The mind is fragile, Rogue knows this all too well - it can only take so much before it  _breaks_.

He doesn't want to be responsible for that a second time.

"Hey," Sting says softly, brushing his bangs out of his face and tucking them behind his ear. His blue eyes are clouded in worry, his lip reddened from his nervous nibbling habit.

"Sorry," Rogue mumbles. "Just...thinking."

"You can talk to me, you know," Sting says, breaking out a smile that's a weak imitation if his usual one. "You  _should_. Part of the whole...for better or for worse shtick."

"We're not married  _yet_."

"But we  _will_ be," Sting says insistently, shuffling closer. Rogue leans into his touch and warmth, a long-standing habit of his. He almost drops onto the table right there under the sudden wave of bone-deep weariness. He's so  _tired_. Of the Gate, of Future Rogue, of being afraid of being happy because whenever he's  _happy_ , really, really  _happy_ , bad things happen.

"We will be. And that means that you can act all...emo-prince like as you want, I'm not leaving you. And I'm gonna bother you until you tell me what's up, even if it means I break my fingers poking your rock-hard abs, capiche?" Sting declares with a poke to said rock-hard abs, just to emphasize his point. Rogue cracks a smile, just a little one, and nods.

"Anything  _but_ the finger. I'll tell you soon, but...not right now. Not until they're back," Rogue says. He reaches a hand down and joins their pinkies, squeezing gently. "Promise."

"The only way to break a pinkie promise-"

"Is to break the pinkies," they both finish. Sting smiles, flashing his pearly white teeth, and leans in for a kiss. Rogue wrinkles his nose and pushes him back an arms length away, rolling his eyes at his pout.

"You  _stink_. Go shower."

Sting's smile morphs into a shit-eating grin. "Wanna join me?"

"I'd rather marry a vegan."

* * *

**Present Day**

**Eastern Magnolia Forest, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**6:15 AM.**

Lucy wakes up to the sounds of birds chirping. As she stretches her fingers and reacquaints herself with her surroundings, she realizes one of the birds is actually her heart rate monitor. The second is-

She almost severs her spinal cord as she whips her head around to face the second cot.

The second is Cynthia Cheney's heart rate monitor.

Her daughter's.

"Hey," Cobra calls from the other side of her bed. "You're finally up."

"Erik," she croaks. He hands her a cup of water, and she takes slow sips to buy her enough time to figure out what to say. He  _knows_ , but what does she tell him? 'Hi honey, my Future Self had a baby with her murderer, and you're never going to  _believe_ who I got guardianship for.' That will go over just  _beautifully_ , especially when he knows the extent to which her terror runs. Benefits of reading souls and all.

Ah, shit.

"I know everything, mostly," Cobra -  _Erik_ confirms. "It's six in the morning, just so you know. Wendy's run tests on you both, she says...well, she'll be fine. How are you holding up?"

Lucy takes a second to look him head to toe. He's  _way_ too calm about this. He's  _never_ this blank-faced and even-toned. The purposefully open posture, the tilted chair and head, the prepared glass of water...it's like he's her therapist or something. All that's missing is the notebook, though with his sharp memory he probably has no need for it. Her heart clenches painfully, and her monitor bleeps annoyingly in tandem. She doesn't  _want_ a therapist. She wants  _Erik_. She  _needs_ Erik. Her entire  _life_ has been beaten with a hammer, sliced up, thrown into a blender to be pureed, frozen, thawed, and then pureed again for good measure. He's her constant. The one thing she can claim is normal about this whole shitfest. If he starts acting all overbearingly caring about it, then Lucy's not sure she can  _do_ this.

"Fine," Erik says, rubbing the back of his neck. He moves from the chair to the bed by her hip and touches her collarbone briefly. "Shit's  _fucked_."

Lucy can't help it - she laughs.

She laughs until all she's doing is shaking uncontrollably, and she laughs until the throbbing, pricking sensation behind her eyes bubbles into hot tears that slide down her face and dampen the cotton sheets she's swaddled in. Erik doesn't wipe them away. He pulls her in close, presses his chin to her forehead, and says nothing, even as her fingers dig bruises into his back and her snot ruins his shirt. He lets her cry until all she can do is take stuttering, uneven breaths, and then he pulls back to kiss her on the forehead.

"Told you you should've let me walk you back," he murmurs. "Wouldn't've kept him from giving you the kid, but I could've hit him. Made us both feel a bit better."

"W-we'll get y-y-you a d-dart b-b-bo-a-ard," Lucy gasps. "His f-fac-c-ce on-on it."

"I like it. Not sure how much the kid'll like us shitting on her dad, but…" his eye drifts over to where Cynthia sleeps. "Guess we won't be telling her about all  _that_."

Lucy shakes her head furiously. Cynthia doesn't need to know about the gorey details - or  _any_ details. She and Rogue will have to decide how much is appropriate for now, but the fact of the matter is that for a while, Future Rogue and Future Lucy were  _happy_. Their daughter deserves to see that through.

Her insides churn uncomfortably, as if her stomach and lungs switched places, and acid pumps through her veins in lieu of oxygen, while her lungs learn to cope in more constrained grounds. Her and Rogue in  _this_ timeline have to raise her. There is no gradual kinship and trust to be built between them like she intended for it to go, no slow walk through shallow water. The nightmares and constant flashes of  _that moment_ are either going to temper out like having your skin pinched for hours upon  _hours_ , where it's gone on so long that the pain, while there, no longer consumes you, or it's going to bleed her dry.

"What do we do?" Lucy asks softly, lifting her head to meet his exhausted eye. "I don't know what to  _do_."

"Neither do I," he replies, subdued. His grip on her shoulder tightens for a moment. "But you're not doing this alone. I'm here."

 _But for how long?_ Her mind whispers.  _How long before you both fall?_

* * *

 _I agree that this life of mine_  
is bereft of your presence,  
but then my heart doesn't know  
any other way to live.

_-Ae Dil Hai Mushkil_


	7. For Me

_Is this that destination that my life has been looking for?_

_Why does my heart want me to stop and rest here peacefully forever?_

_I've found new emotions_

_I don't know what they're doing to me._

_I've found a new hope_

_Because someone has finally accepted me._

_-Banjaara_

* * *

 

**Future Timeline**

**Magnolia, Fiore**

**Monday, April 4th, X792**

**6:55 AM**

" _You know, they say 'April showers bring May flowers'," Lucy says as she joins him by the makeshift observatory. It's nothing more than a well-hidden plane of glass propped over a little dugout at the northernmost tip of their hideout - definitely not strong enough to withstand an attack of any kind, let alone a dragon, but with Freed and Levy's runes reinforcing it all they should be safe for now._

" _If the soil isn't poisoned, that is," Rogue murmurs in response. Iron leeched from blood, calcium stripped from bone...the very essence of life, broken down, beaten in, and born anew in the spring. He almost laughs at the irony of it all._

_He turns to Lucy and takes in the worn bandages wrapped around her wrist. An accidental grazing with one of Natsu's flaming fists. She won't be joining them today, and he's almost glad for it. Nothing good can ever come from rainy days. He turns back to his watching and idly wonders how long it would take for the heavy rain to strip the flesh off his dead body. How long before they realize he's gone._

" _We can always build a purifier," Lucy offers softly. "But that's not why you're worried, is it?"_

" _How long do you think we can last?" he wonders aloud. "I know I'm not the only one who's tired of it all."_

" _We last as long as we can."_

" _And if I can't last more than today?"_

_Lucy takes his hand and smooths out the purple half-moons etched into his palm. "Try for me."_

* * *

**Present Day**

**Fairy Tail Guild Hall**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**7:03 AM.**

Rogue watches the rain fall and wishes he could down in the pools of water forming on the street.

It takes everything he has to focus on the pitter-patter on the window and not the even breaths of Future Rogue's daughter barely five feet away from him. Not his daughter.  _Future Rogue's_. He tries to distance himself from her like he's supposed to, because Future Rogue and Rogue are two different people, but every time he catches a glimpse of her face he sees himself in her. The sleekness of her hair, the length of her lashes, her nose, the sharp angles of her jaw...there's a little bit of Lucy in her cheekbones, the curve of her lips, and the shape of her eyes, but the resemblance to him is overwhelming.

He sees her and he sees  _him_.

Lucy lies on a cot nearby, burning off the effects of whatever medication Wendy'd doped her up on earlier. Cobra left a while back with Sting in tow, neither of them sparing the girl a second look. He can't blame them. He has no  _right_ to blame them. They all see hell in the little girl, and the only two people obligated to look at it are him and her.

The ring on his finger is somehow heavier now, to the point where he pulls it off just to be able to breathe again. He looks at the words etched inside, looks at the girl behind him, and wonders how they've fallen so far.

"We're not going to be okay, are we?" he murmurs, rolling the silver ring back and forth between his fingers. "Just when we were…"

Lucy doesn't say anything, but she doesn't need to. The sudden spike in her respirations says it all for her. He remains seated by the window, observing the world go black for the second time that day.

There are a lot of things he wants to do in that moment. Dying sounds particularly wonderful, but Sting would never forgive him. He wants to talk to Sting - needs to, really - but the haunting blankness in his eyes keeps him frozen to his seat. They need space, no matter how the minutes that pass by tear away at his sanity bit by bit.

He slips the ring into his pocket and runs his hands through his hair - his short, pure black hair with an intact eye hidden under the bangs - tightening and tightening until his headache ebbs away and is replaced with numb aches.

It's not  _fair_.

He's doing good. He's been doing good for so, so,  _so long_ , and all it takes is one minute for it all to come crashing down around him. What would have happened if he'd kept Lucy behind last night, just a little longer? Would she have missed Future Rogue and the girl? Would they both have died that night? ( _I wish they had. I wish he died I wish she died I wish I_ died-!) The world could have carried on none the wiser. He and Sting would've woken up at nine, they would be at the Guild Hall for breakfast at nine-thirty, and he would have bought Lucy a milkshake for when she arrived at ten. They could have been friends.

Now he's not sure they can be  _anything_.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Fairy Tail Guild Hall**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**7:05 AM.**

"Day drinking is  _not_ a habit you wanna get into," Mest grumbles as he slides in next to him. "Take it from me."

"Heard you fell off the wagon," Sting says conversationally, as if his entire world hasn't just been swept over by a wave of septic sludge and nuked for good measure. The bottle in his hands is gross and warm and he's not entirely sure whose it was originally, but the label says it's 50 proof and that's all he really needs right now, so down the hatch the shitty, bitter thing goes. Like dissolves like, after all.

Mest doesn't respond and instead opts to start nibbling on the bread rolls Mira'd whipped out from nowhere for the morning stragglers. Sting watches him, half in pity, half in envy. He can't imagine what it's like to relapse like that, but at the same time he  _wishes_ he could, too, if only to forget his own name and feel that first high all over again. Hell, if forgetting that little girl's name is all he can get, he'll  _take it._

"Cobra's went off to do a recon on his own," Mest says after he finishes a roll and moves onto the next. "I'll be leading a team myself later on today. You up for joining me?"

Sting knows a buoy when he sees one, and he's almost  _too_ quick nodding in agreement. A solid chunk of him is outraged and calling him a inbred sock-snorting shitgibbon because his fucking  _fiance_ is upstairs and in dire need of a shoulder to rest his head on; the remaining chunks, the selfish bits he's done a damn good job of silencing since his tenure as Guild Master began, tell him to  _fuck_ it and do what he wants because nothing really matters at the moment anyway.

But things do matter. They do, otherwise Sting would be feeling indifferent instead of nothing.

Mest, wisely, offers him a roll.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Canal Street West**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**7:23 AM.**

Ironically, the Gate manifested itself next to a dumpster in an alley.

Cobra robotically funnels the traces of magic from the Gate into a specialized test tube, caps it off and pockets it. Mest gave him a list of things to try and collect before the actual recon teams headed out - a poor attempt to distract him, he knows, but he's thankful to the former councillor for giving him an out.

Rationally, there's no reason to be mad.  _Rationally_. There's nothing remotely fucking rational about time traveling and kids. He can't freak out in front of Lucy because she doesn't need the added stress, and he refuses to break down in front of anyone because he has a  _reputation_ to uphold. The only people left to judge him are the geese pecking away at stolen bread, and those little shits probably don't give a fuck either way so he settles down near the canal and watches his reflection in the water.

The worst part about his magic is that he can't just hear their pain - he  _feels_ it. It's roiling nausea and bone deep aches that won't go away with any amount of rest or distance. The further away he goes the worse it gets. Probably because then he has to focus on his  _own_ feelings in this hell, as if he's not spent his formative years doing just that and learned that it's best to just avoid it all in the end. There's no way he can avoid this, though, not when he's at the heart of the issue.

Except he  _isn't._ Because that kid is  _Lucy_ and  _Rogue's_ , and even Sting has a role to play what with that whole murder and subsequent power theft. As far as anyone is concerned, Cobra may as well be Jet or Droy for how far unrelated he is to it all. He has no place here - he's  _never_ had a place  _anywhere_ , but it fucking  _hurts_ in that visceral part of him that awoke for the first time in  _years_ the night before. Little Erik may be  _dead_ but his ghost still lives on in the untouchable parts of his soul.

With Little Erik comes the uncomfortable revelation that Cobra isn't nearly as altruistic as he's been pretending to be when it comes to Lucy and her well being. The fact of the matter is that he's a horrible fucking human being - hell, calling him  _human_ is a stretch - and when he decides something is  _his_ then there's nothing stopping him from  _protecting_ it, means be damned because Little Erik only knows to  _kill_ and  _save_  (and it turns out Little Erik and Cobra aren't so different after all). He hadn't lied when he said he'd remain by her side through this whole ordeal. There's nothing on the face of the planet that could pry him away from her at this point, but the truth is that his needing to stay with her has a little less to do with being a supportive shoulder to cry on and more to do with him being able to monitor her soul closely to make sure she doesn't go down a spiral like before.

Here's the thing: Cobra's killed before. He's been killing for so long that the moral lines he'd drawn around people he could kill blurred between his twelfth and thirteenth birthday, and as much as it might hurt everyone now, he's prepared to kill that little girl. If it means he never has to feel Lucy's sheer terror clawing at his soul ever again, then he will kill Cynthia Cheney and dispose of the body and god he feels sick even  _thinking_ this because he's supposed to be  _different_ now but the reality is that he can and will kill her and go to bed and sleep through the night without even an iota of doubt in his mind that he is in the right for doing so.

( _Nothing_ has changed but  _everything_ has changed and he hates how familiar and, worse yet,  _comfortable_ he is with this.)

He doesn't notice he's not alone until Mest clears his throat behind him. "Um, I don't think the grass did anything to you…"

Cobra blinks at the now dead grass beneath him and unclenches his fingers from the yellowed patches before him. The poison's likely burrowed so deep into the ground that it'll take years before anything can grow here again. He stands up and brushes the dirt off his pants as he says, "What are you doing here?"

"Cynthia's awake," Mest says, smiling uncomfortably, "So, um, I thought I should get you…?"

* * *

**Present Day**

**Fairy Tail Guild Hall**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Saturday, October 16th, X792.**

**8:00 AM**

Lucy looks at Cynthia and wishes she could say she sees Layla in the colour of her eyes, or Rogue in the curve of her jaw, or even herself in the shape of her thin lips. Those are the  _normal_ things a parent notices in a child, the things that are supposed to remind her of her loved ones because this girl is supposed to be a culmination of  _love_ but by the  _gods_ all she sees is  _him._

He's  _everywhere_. Her eyes may be trademark Heartfilia but the cold, blank depths to them is all  _him_. She wonders if that's something she inherited or if she developed it watching him. She hazards a glance at Rogue, who, for all intents and purposes, is a lifeless marionette on his seat; his eyes are the same, too. Even the way her thinning hair falls over her eyes mimics his. She's not smiling yet and Lucy digs her nails into her arms when she feels  _relieved_ because if Cynthia's smile has even a tenth of the manic touch to it that her father's had then the Celestial Mage will never be able to sleep  _again_. Not in the same house, anyway.

For once, Laxus's back is not ramrod straight as he looms over Cynthia's bed. Has he always looked this old? There's depth to the wrinkles on his forehead that she's never seen before, and there's no denying the faint streaks of silver lining his temples. Twenty-four and looking twice that. She has to wonder how she fares. Her gaze flicks to Mest and Wendy, both of whom are mulling over a chart with odd squiggles on it. Wendy's presence is necessitated as the sole healer in the Guild, but she can't pinpoint why Mest is here.

"He's damage control for us all," Erik murmurs beside her. "He doesn't need to touch us to knock us out."

Lucy frowns at that, but what  _really_ bothers her is how Erik moves to stand by the window afterwards. He's been distant ever since Mest brought him back, an attitude at odds with the softer side he'd been displaying only hours before. She's no soul-reader like him but even she can feel his mood darken with every glance he throws Cynthia's way. It's like he's not seeing  _her_  there - rather, he eyes her the same way he does some of the Dark Mages he captures, with cold, calculating distrust and the intent to  _kill_. Lucy bites her lower lip nervously. He won't, though. She knows he has a  _past_ but he has an ethical code now.

He  _can't_ kill her.

"What's your name?" Laxus asks suddenly.

"Cynthia Cheney," she says quietly. Lucy flinches just as Rogue does. She speaks in the same monotone as  _him._

"When were you born? How old are you?"

"November 22nd. Seven." Wendy scribbles something down in her notes quickly. Lucy doesn't miss the worried looks she and Mest exchange.

"Do you know where you are? And who we all are?"

"Fairy Tail." She lifts a thin arm and points around the room. "Laxus Uncle. Cobra Uncle. Sting Uncle. Wendy Auntie. Mest Uncle." Finally, her trembling fingers reach them. "Mama and papa. But not  _my_ mama and papa. Past."

Rogue's chalky skin loses what little colour it has. His fingers crush the edge of his chair as if it's the only thing keeping him from sinking into the shadows for good. Sting looks  _green_ around the gills but keeps a steady grip on Rogue's shoulder. Erik stays rooted to the window. Lucy swallows back the lump in her throat and mechanically traces the metal ridges of her keys, one by one, carefully avoiding eye contact with her daughter. No. Not her daughter.  _Other_ her's daughter.

"How did Future Rogue bring you here? How did he get the Gates to work?" Laxus asks.

Mest's brow furrows. "Laxus, she's just a  _kid_. Not a prisoner."

"The sooner we deal with it the better. Those Gates-"

"Fate," Cynthia interrupts them. She looks at Lucy and Rogue but she's not really  _looking_ at them. Lucy's lungs spasm painfully; she  _recognizes_ that. No. She's  _lived_ that. Every single day for  _weeks_ after her mother died, and then her father.

( _But you're here now, and so is_ he)

( _Does that make it any better when she knows you're not that version of Lucy?_ )

"Papa said the Fates made him do it. I was the only one left. He didn't say why," Cynthia says. She tucks her knees under her chin and keeps looking at her. What sends a chill down the faintly there pieces of her soul is the fact that there's absolutely  _nothing_ in her eyes. There's no joy at meeting another version of her parents (her  _living, whole_ parents), no relief in seeing a peaceful world out the windows. Her eyes are hopelessly empty and it  _scares_ her.

"This makes no sense, I thought that timeline ceased to exist," Sting says suddenly. "We broke those Gates, how did-?"

"Timelines can't be destroyed. They always exist. We just destroyed any traces of Future Rogue in our timeline and sent him back to his. As for the Fates...Freed's working on that right now," Laxus replies. His posture relaxes a little as he nods at Wendy. "Does she stay here another night?"

"I would prefer it but this probably isn't good for her. Um, I'm not...sure where she'll be staying at...unless…" Wendy trails off hesitantly.

"Unless…?"

"Unless, um, Lucy and Rogue would be willing to put up a room for her? You don't need to though!" she backtracks quickly at the sheer panic on their faces. "Mest and I can figure something out. I have some room in my apartment, I just thought it would be beneficial for her to stay somewhere less...sterile. And with her...parents."

"She can stay with me," Lucy says automatically. "Mest lives next door. If anything, then…"

"I got you, yeah."

"Then Sting can stay at mine," Erik says. He studiously ignores Lucy and continues, "Wendy said  _parents_."

Lucy feels like she's been  _slapped_. Even Rogue has the grace to look confused by the sudden shift in attitudes.

Mest, ever the diplomat, holds his hand up and says, "Lucy and Rogue will stay in Lucy's apartment with Cynthia. Sting and Cobra are welcome to stay in mine if they want, or they can go to Cobra's."

"I'll go with Cobra," Sting says after a beat. Rogue clenches his jaw tight enough to shatter his teeth, but says nothing.

How long does this thread have to be picked before the whole fabric comes falling apart?

* * *

**Future Timeline**

**Magnolia, Fiore**

**Thursday, April 7th, X792**

**9:57 PM**

" _You're awake." Hands gently unfurl his fists. She's soft._

" _How long was I out?"_

" _A day or two. You all got ambushed pretty bad. Wendy says you should be okay, though."_

_He catches her fingers just as she pulls away._

" _I lasted."_

_She smiles, softer than he's ever seen it._

" _Thank you."_

* * *

 

_She made me forget all my pain_

_She has such an effect on me_

_She is teaching me how to live again_

_Like the rain drenches everything_

_Or the feeling of balm on a wound_

_I've found someone..._

_Like a wanderer has found a home_

_Like the morning of a new season_

_Or the afternoon in the winter_

_I've found someone..._

_Like a wanderer has found a home_

_-Banjaara_


	8. Sins of the Father

_Like the soft sunlight, in a melodious way,_  
_You've touched me and passed by._  
_Should I look at you? Should I hear you?_  
_You are my peace,_  
_You are my passion,_  
_Why didn't you enter my life earlier?_  
_-Kaise Mujhe_

* * *

 

**Future Timeline**

**Magnolia, Fiore**

**Friday, March 8th, X797**

**11:45 PM**

_Rogue grabs Cynthia by the scruff of her shirt and melts into the shadows._

_She screams to high hell, and he clamps a hand around her mouth in a bruising grip.  “Shh, shh,” he chants into her ear, holding her close. “I know it's scary, sweetheart, but you have to be_ quiet _.”_

 _Lucy's with Natsu's group to the east, and Sting is somewhere a bit north of that.  Wendy's probably with Laxus or Mest, and Gajeel's fuck knows where with Cobra and the rest.  The only dragon slayer in the whole goddamn hideout is_ him _and he's got about half his fucking magical capacity after the recon mission the other day.  Godfuckdammit all to_ hell _he knew he shouldn't have fucking gone but Sting needed him and now he's got that stupid fucking rock dragon from hell raging down on him and his daughter to keep safe all the while._

_His shadows can only keep them as safe as long as the hideout stands._

_“Cynthia, I'm going to take my hand off your mouth and you_ need to be quiet _, okay? Can you do that?” He waits for her to bob her head before he slowly peels his hand away, hovering close by just in case he needs to hold her mouth closed again.  She's wheezing between hiccups and the occasional sniffle, but she's as quiet as a terrified four year old can get._

_“Are you hurt?”_

_“L-leg,” she gasps.  Rogue bites his lip and pats her leg down.  No bleeding means there's nothing he can do until Wendy returns and the dragons are gone._

_“I can't do anything now, I'm sorry.  You need to listen to me very carefully.  That dragon out there is not going to stop unless I stop him.  I can't let you up there because it's too dangerous for you. You're going to stay in the shadows until I come back for you.” Cynthia immediately bursts into a silent protest, complete with a fresh bout of tears and a heart rate through the roof.  Rogue tampers down on the sympathetic panic that washes over him. It hurts to see her hurt, more than anything else in the_ world _._

_She shouldn't have to learn that sometimes she needs to hurt before she's safe so young._

_“I'll be back, Cynthia.  I_ promise _,” he swears, pressing a kiss into her hair and forcing her into the shadows as he bursts out with a roar._

_Cynthia plugs her ears and presses her knees into her eyes.  “Papa, don't go. I'll be good, I'll be quiet, don't go…”_

* * *

**Present Day** **  
** **Magnolia Junior Mage Academy** **  
** **Magnolia, Fiore.** **  
** **Saturday, October 16th, X792.** **  
** **10:00 AM**

Totomaru is having a good day.

Sure he complained just a little about being dragged out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn to deal with a _gas leak_ of all things (he's a fucking _fire mage,_  why would he know anything?) and maybe he forgot he has a pile of tests to mark, but the sun is shining, the restaurant down the street does discounted delivery on weekends, and it's been two whole _weeks_ since he last saw a single Fairy, sans -

“Totomaru!”

He sighs and wipes the tallies off the board.  He'd been so close to beating his last streak, too.

“What do you want, Mest-san?” Totomaru asks as politely as he can manage.  Mest is on the _very_ short list of Fairies whose presence he can tolerate for more than five minutes in a row, but that doesn't mean he's safe from being booted to the same shitlist Natsu occupies if Totomaru's feeling particularly pissy one day.  And since Totomaru is having a _good day goddammit,_ Mest is  _mostly_ safe.

For now.

“So, um, you know about the whole Sting getting engaged to Rogue thing, right?”

“Yes, Dobengal told me the other day.” And his poor half-brother had been _raging_ pissed, too, seeing as he was in charge of dealing with the drunk bodies the morning after.

“And you know about how Lucy and Cobra are a thing, right?”

“I still have no idea how that happened, but yes.”

“Okay, and how much do you remember from the Grand Magic Games last year?”

Totomaru arches his brow and clicks his tongue.  “You mean before or after the part where you went around altering memories? I remember everything.  And I mean _everything_.  The underground talks, kid.”

Mest heaves a sigh of relief and drags over one of the low chairs from the row of desks behind him, plopping down.  He looks comically large squished in the tiny plastic seat. “So,” Mest begins, “Uh, last night the Gate popped up again-”

“Fucking _excuse me_?” Totomaru chokes out.  That piece of shit Gate was destroyed by that piece of shit Natsu and that piece of shit timeline was supposed to have been shot straight to hell so what the whole, genuine, tapdancing _fuck_ is that godforsaken _thing_ doing popping up again?

“Yeah, so Future Rogue-” Totomaru flinches _violently_ at that, “- uh, he sort of...came back.”

“ _What_?”

“Yeah, with his and Future Lucy's daughter.  There's a whole bunch of shit going on here, dude, I don't have time to explain it all but we need you to do some assessments on her,” Mest explains.

Totomaru presses the heels of his palms into his eyeballs until spots dance across his vision.  What the _fuck_.  What the _fuck_.  He's never short circuited this hard in his _life_.  Not even when he first met Zancrow and watched him throw a jar of mayonnaise at José's head.  There's a fine line between shit that does happen in his life and shit that does _not_ happen, and since he's got ties to the underground scene _and_ Fairy Tail, his capacity for rolling with the punches is quite high.  This, though? This is... _what the fuck._

“What do you mean _assess_?” he snaps.

“Her magic.  And also mental state.  That's part of your job, yeah?” Mest presses, waving at the framed degrees behind him.  “I don't wanna get any of the Council's psychologists on her case, especially given the circumstances.  You're our best bet. Please?”

Totomaru scowls, eyes flickering towards the wall.  There are numerous accolades up there, but the ones Mest is talking about read _Bachelor of Cognition and Neuroscience, Master of Science, Cognitive Neuroscience,_ and _Doctor of Philosophy, Cognitive Neuroscience and Behavioural Psychology._  He's as certified as it gets but holy fucking God above even he has his limits, and it turns out freaky time travel is _it_.  

“I _refuse_ ,” Totomaru says coldly, forcing his gaze back to the tests strewn before him.  He can't read a single fucking word on the sheets but Mest doesn't need to know that.

“You refuse her but not those kids in Sin's civil war? It's the same fucking thing.”

The pen in his hand snaps, spilling red ink everywhere.  “That was _low_ ,” Totomaru says, controlled despite his fury.  “I'd advise you not do that again, _counsellor_.”

“Taken under advisement,” Mest says breezily, and it's only then that Totomaru notices the bags under his eyes, the jittery leg, and the little scab on the back of his hand he _knows_ is from an IV.  The gears in his head click rhythmically, mulling over this information and grinding it together with what he knows of the man from before...a cruel smirk tugs on his lips.  Oh. _Oh._

“Fall off the wagon recently, counsellor?” he asks kindly, taking sick pleasure in the near spastic jerk away from him.  

_Two can play at this game._

“I get it,” Mest replies tightly.  He runs a hand through his spiked hair and exhales shakily.  It's not the alcohol withdrawal that has set off the faint tremors, that much he can tell.   _Stress_ , he thinks mournfully, _kills the best of us in the end._

Totomaru heaves a sigh and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.  Had this been any other child in any other situation, he would've agreed in a heartbeat.  This child, though? Just the very thought of having to be near the offspring of the biggest psychopath of their era sends a cold shiver down his spine.  He tenses and relaxes his calf muscles, as if to ensure they're still whole and there. Totomaru is a goddamn objective _genius_ and it hadn't taken him too long to realize that the jarring vision he'd had during the Dragon Festival was an actual precognition.  He's willing to forgive and forget a lot in life, but it's hard to do that when he wakes up in a cold sweat every so often wondering whose legs are under his sheets.  

 _Why hold the sins of the father against the child?_ His subconscious chides.   _Had that not been what your mother did all those years ago when Dobengal was born?_

Why hold those sins indeed, he muses.  Rubbing the back of his neck with one hand, he opens his desk drawer and extracts a couple colourful folders, flipping through them until he finds a sheaf of papers that he hands over to Mest.  

“Fill this out and get it back to me by the end of the week.  Do you have any idea what her magic type is?”

“Caster with a water affinity, I think?”

Totomaru frowns at that.  “Her mother is Holder and father is Caster, correct? And the Holder is for Celestial Spirit Keys?”

“Uh, yeah.  I thought magic inheritance worked so that Caster was preferred over Holder? What's the issue?” Mest asks, narrowing his eyes.  The Fire Mage rummages around the never-ending black hole that is his desk until he pulls out a bright chart covered with informative speech bubbles and cartoon figures.  At Mest's raised brow, Totomaru rolls his eyes. “I use this for the kindergarteners, shut up.”

“Magical inheritance doesn't work like genes do.  If that were the case then we wouldn't have as much magical variance in the population as we do right now.  Instead, we inherit the _capacity_ for the types.  For example, say your parents are both Caster type.  You still inherit the capacity to be a Holder mage regardless of your heritage, but you are _far_ more likely to become a Caster type.  Nor do you inherit their specific magic in that manner, barring _very_ rare circumstances.  It's more of a...gene-environment interaction, as it were,” Totomaru explains, pointing out the example lineages on the chart.  “I'll need to do a little research myself, but _Caster water_ inheritance? That's...interesting.” He shakes his head and sighs.  “I didn't mean to lecture you. Whatever. Just get those papers filled out and back to me.”

An awkward pause, then: “Sorry about...what I said.  Before. Thanks.”

When Totomaru looks up, the little plastic chair is back by its desk and the room is empty.

“Moron.”

* * *

 **Present Day** **  
** **Wisteria Bar** **  
** **Oak Town, Fiore.** **  
** **Saturday, October 16th, X792.** **  
** **1:37 PM**

“You both look like _shit_ ,” the bartender says bluntly as she slides over two glasses of a murky amber liquid he already _knows_ is gonna have him ten kinds of fucked up tomorrow morning.  Sting waits for Cobra to take a sip before following in suit - he's mildly surprised to find that the drink is smoother than butter going down, warming his chest instead of burning his throat.  

“This wouldn't have anything to do with that Gate again, would it?” Sting _immediately_ chokes on his drink.  He's so busy thumping his chest and gasping for air that he narrowly misses Cobra's response.

“How many other people know, Ikuha?” The bartender, Ikuha, flicks her bangs out of her eyes and hums, a delicate smile on her lips.  

“Hound's boys were talking last night.  Apparently they caught wind of the magic in the air and Hound went investigating on his own.  He was in Crocus that night so he figured it out pretty quick and came running to me.” She leans down to murmur, “You want me to keep an ear out for you?”

“Tell Hound and his lot to trace that thing as far back as they're able to.  If they find anything weird, tell you and you make a judgement call,” Cobra instructs, holding out his empty glass - when did _that_ happen? - and adding, “Jellal hears nothing about this.  Nobody does.”

Ikuha swipes his glass and nods to the both of them.  “Gotcha. Cobra...don't go doing something stupid, you hear? If Hound doesn't bust your nuts for it, I will.”

“Informant?” Sting asks once she's sashayed off to deal with a rowdy group of bikers.  

“She was originally one of my sleeper agents, but she runs her own little criminal empire on the side these days.  Jellal likes it here, too. She doesn't ask questions,” Cobra says shortly, meeting his gaze with a bone weary exhaustion painting his features.  “But I imagine you have some. Shoot.”

Sting traces the carvings on the grainy bartop and huffs.  The questions he wants answers to are those that Cobra cannot provide.  Why this timeline? Why them? Who or _what_ are the Fates, and why in the goddamn shit are they interfering with their lives now of all times when everything is finally fucking normal?

He looks over to Cobra and shrugs.  “How're you holding up?”

Cobra smiles faintly, an actual, real smile with no trace of bitterness or sarcasm in the dimples on his cheeks.  “Could be worse. You?”

“I'm alive, I guess.” He holds back a wince because _being alive_ has, over the years, become a valid response to that query.  He just wonders where he reached that point. Somewhere between killing Jiemma and yesterday, he supposes.  

“I'm surprised you didn't stick around.  Figured you were the type to be his shoulder to cry on and all that shit.”

Sting winces.  Yes, that is _entirely_ the bill he fits and yes, had this been any other situation he would've been front and center for it all because he's Sting Eucliffe and his other half is Rogue Cheney, and the only thing they've not done together is cook because they can never agree on what to make and how to make it.  

“I don't...know how to react,” Sting starts hesitantly, because what he's about to say is undoubtedly the most _selfish_ thing that's ever crossed his mind, “Not just to Cynthia, but...they were together in that timeline.  I always...okay, this is gonna sound so stupid but I always thought that we were _it_ , you know? This lifetime and the next.”

“Soulmates?” Cobra offers dryly.  Sting snorts. It sounds even _dumber_ now that he's made it all succinct but he nods sharply.  He's always been of the mindset that _fate_ and _destiny_ were cheap cop outs for people too weak to do anything about their shitty circumstances but a part of him has always held private reservations with that notion.   _Yes_ things can always be changed and _yes_ destiny is _utter and complete bullshit_ , but there are things in his life that seem almost too large for this world.  Dragons and ancient magic and time travel and things he gleans from council meetings that he's not supposed to, and all he is is a nineteen year old boy just as lost as the rest but expected to know it all.  Most days he's a fumbling child trying to hold together the bright lights of the universe with weak fingers and just _barely_ succeeding.  

The knowledge that the Fates are _real_ comes with the additional clause that maybe he and Rogue were never meant to be in the first place.  

He doesn't want to know the answer.

“It's not stupid, and you're partially correct.” Sting's head snaps up so fast it's audible.  Cobra's troubled eye is at odds with the firm line of his mouth and otherwise relaxed posture.  

“You mean-?”

“It's not really set in stone like you're thinking.  Imagine...wavelengths.” Cobra holds up his hands and angles them at 45-degrees opposite one another, pressing his fingertips together.  “Sometimes, you'll meet people with...soul wavelengths that oppose yours, so you wind up with destructive interference.” His left hand drops down to press flat against his right like a prayer.  “Sometimes, you meet people whose wavelengths complement yours, so the combined amplitude is greater than yours alone - constructive interference. Other times, the amplitude stays the same.”

“So, what you're saying is that we wind up with people whose _souls_ we vibe with the hardest?” Sting asks, mind going a mile a minute as he digests this information.  There's a possibility, then, that he was right - that he and Rogue were _not_ meant to be.  There's someone out there better for him, and that someone might be the very same woman his future self murdered in cold blood.  

Where did he go _wrong_?

Cobra kicks his seat.  “Don't be stupid, were you listening to anything I said? You and him amplify one another for sure, but that's in this timeline.  Lucy and Rogue just work together normally, no change in amplitude.” They both ignore the unspoken _for now._

“I must sound like a prick, huh?” Sting mutters, tracing his worries in the fog covering his glass, watching as they disappear as another layer builds atop it.  They're still there, though. They always are.

“I guess, but that makes two of us,” Cobra says, not unkindly.  He goes boneless for a second, and briefly, there's something in the air between them.  An unspoken agreement that what happens now will stay between them and _only_ them.  Cobra licks his lips and then says so quietly he has to strain to hear it over the steady background thrum, “Back when Lucy and I first...considered the possibility of dating, I checked.  I was curious. Stupid, mostly selfish, but I checked.”

Sting doesn't prod, but he does politely look away and give him a minute.  He watches Ikuha wipe down glasses until Cobra speaks up again. “Once. It was Gray, actually.  It didn't work out after a few months, but their amplitude was...high.”

“Higher than yours,” Sting guesses.  He won't pretend to know how that feels but he can't deny that he's intimately familiar with the gut-wrenching emptiness that follows that particular revelation.

Cobra hums.  “Yeah. It never really bothered me, you know? I've seen it happen a hundred times.”

Sting washes down the _but this time does_ with the dregs of his drink and the ice cubes that clink together when he slams the glass down harder than necessary.  It's happened a hundred times before but never to _them_.  If this - the sick and ache and all-consuming doubt - is _Fate_ , then it's one fucked up joke that was never funny in the first place.  

The glass shatters and there's no pain.  Numb indifference is a balm to the wound and imparts in him a twisted appreciation for the way his blood spills over the whorls and lines of the wood.  Does Fate control _this_? This imperfection?

Ikuha presses paper towels into his palm, and Cobra - _Erik_ \- doesn't say a word.

* * *

 **Present Day** **  
** **14 Strawberry Street** **  
** **Magnolia, Fiore.** **  
** **Saturday, October 16th, X792.** **  
** **7:37 PM**

“I have to head out,” Wendy says apologetically, “I just got a call from the hospital, the Saturday ER rush just started and it's all hands on deck.”

 _Don't go!_ Lucy wants to say.   _Don't leave me here with_ them _!_

As if reading her mind, Wendy smiles, reassuring, and says, “Don't worry.  Mest will be right back in his room once he drops me off if you need him. And the Guild - er, just call Mest.” Lucy nods and follows her to the door, where the Direct Line mage holds out a packet of papers for her to take.  

“I contacted a friend about this whole thing.  He said he'd help with her magic, but he's also a psychologist.  He might be able to help her,” Mest explains, eyeing the living room where _she's_ been sitting for the past couple hours.  Lucy hazards a peek over her shoulder and finds Cynthia curled up against the arm of the sofa.  She's watching some children's program, but her glassy eyes do little more than reflect the bright colours back.  

“Where do I drop it off?”

“I'll pick it up by the end of the week.  You just…” He struggles to finish the sentence, turning his helpless face towards Wendy, who licks her lips and freezes.  What _do_ they say? Stay safe? Relax? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that she _can_ 't, no matter what she does.  Not even the sleeping pills in her medicine cabinet are going to put her at ease long enough to sleep.  

“Yeah, I know.” She forces a smile and Mest takes that as his cue to grab Wendy with one hand and shoot her a quick salute with the other.  She blinks and they're gone.

By the time she she realizes she's on autopilot, she's in the living room by her desk not five feet away from Future Lucy's daughter.  She sinks into her wooden writing chair and flips through the pages. There's the basic personal information of the parents and child in question, structured similar to the forms she's filled out at the doctors, and then there's questions for the parent and child, ranging from their reasons for the assessment, to _At what age did your child begin to manifest their magic? Describe the incident in as much detail as possible, including the context of the situation, any factors that may have aggravated the onset of the magic._

She'd always figured that, because her mother was a Celestial Spirit Mage and so was she, that at least _one_ of her future children would inherit the magic.  She would be there for their first contract, first battle, first magic depletion, first time haggling with scummy shopkeepers, and all the other magical firsts in between.  Did Future Lucy get that opportunity? Future Rogue mentioned Cynthia's predisposition for Caster magic, a water affinity, she thinks, which is odd because _nobody_ in her family has ever used water magic before.  She might not have been able to guide her child's fumbling first summon, but did Cynthia ever meet the Aquarius of the future? Did they get along? Even in a war zone she can picture the irritable mermaid calling forth sweeping tides for the sole purpose of drowning the mother-daughter duo for wasting her time.

Lucy settles down on the opposite end of the couch gingerly, poised to run at the barest hint of a panic attack.  Cynthia doesn't acknowledge her. Lucy lifts her hand jerkily, pausing every so often and dropping a little lower after each break in the hopes that she caught her attention and could drop the waving act.  Even when she hesitantly waves her hand in front of her eyes, the most that happens is that Cynthia blinks, a little confusion seeping into her eyes, before she's back to observing the cartoon with a detached, clinical gaze.  

“Er, Cynthia?” she calls, “Are...how are you?”

It's a long while before she responds, and even then she speaks so quietly it's like she never spoke at all.  “I'm okay.”

Except she's not.  It only really hits Lucy why everything seems off when she notices how Cynthia angles her back to the closest thing there is to a wall near her.  She'd seen it in one of those late night documentaries a couple months back, about the lives of people in war-torn countries, from soldiers to civilians.  How, even when _safe_ , they were _back there_.  They never left.  It breaks Lucy all over again, knowing that all this little girl has known is destruction and not even an alternate timeline with nothing around to hurt her will fix that.  

What are the typical things a mother should know about her child? Favourite colour? Hopes, dreams, aspirations? Least favourite food?

“Do you like carrot cake?” Lucy blurts out.  “I...have some in my fridge?”

For the first time that day, her face shows something other than indifference.  “Carrot...cake?” Cynthia asks slowly. Right. Warzone. Probably never even seen a carrot, if her malnourished state is to go by.  Mind set, Lucy rises and holds out a hand, smiling as kindly as she can manage. “Yep. A cake made of carrots. Tastes absolutely divine, if you ask me.”

Cynthia doesn't take her hand but she does trail behind her to the kitchen, eyeing the appliances curiously.  Lucy pulls out the cake and a fork, and watches as she takes a small bite. She doesn't look like she hates it, but it's hard to tell if she likes it.  She's as blank as R-

Her father.

“It's not bitter,” she murmurs.  “But not sweet. There's…” The barest hints of frustration touch her forehead.

“Cinnamon,” Lucy supplies.  “It's a spice.”

“Oh.”

“I bought the nightlight.”

Lucy loses ten years of her life and clips her hip against the fridge door as Rogue materializes out of nowhere in her kitchen.  She turns to Cynthia, half expecting her to be a hysterical mess in the corner, but instead finds her looking at the swirling shadows with an odd sort of longing in her eyes.  Where Lucy sees death, she must see safety. Future Rogue fathered her, after all, and he didn't go batshit crazy until later, so for a while he must've been okay. Maybe not the type to use shadow puppets to lull her to sleep, but the type to teach her to survive.

“Right, we should probably figure out sleeping arrangements, huh?” Lucy laughs, hollow.  “Er, Cynthia can take my room. Rogue, my sofa's a pullout, I'll take the floor-”

“I can take the floor, it's your house.”

“You're a guest, I insist.” Lucy holds up her hand.  “Um, we don't have to sleep now, there's probably something on TV…?”

“I'm tired,” Cynthia declares shortly.  “Can I sleep?”

Though she's the adult here, Lucy feels an awful like a berated child, nodding in assent and leading her down the hall to her bedroom.  

* * *

“Where do we go from here?”

Rogue counts all the cracks in the ceiling twice before responding.  “Well, we've hit the proverbial rock bottom. I suppose the only place to go is up.”

“Or down,” Lucy offers lightly, tracing the seams on her quilt.  She thinks of all the times her Guild has been forced to the ground and how they've always, _always_ bounced back.  This should instill her with a sense of hope, but really all it does is send a burst of cold through her chest.  This isn't something they can win the way they always have, with fists, magic, and murder. This requires more long-term planning and the fact of the matter is that Lucy's grown fucking _shit_ at that over the years.

“Or down,” he agrees.  “You know I'm not him, right?”

“Yes.”

“The events of that timeline have nothing to do with ours.  He may have been involved with her there, but we...are not them.”

“Do you think he actually ever loved her?” Lucy muses, turning her head to look up at him.  His bangs cover most of his face but they do little to hide the tension in his jaw. “I mean, when he killed her.  Do you think he remembered? Did she love him, even in the end?”

It happens all the time in the novels she reads.  The main character's love interest, under some form of mind control, grievously injures them, and in that moment the spell is broken.  They beg them to stay alive all the way until they arrive at the hospital and stays by their side, whispering apologies to them until they wake up.  Future Rogue had barely _flinched_ when he killed Future Lucy, and according to Natsu his final moments were spent focusing on Frosch's safety.  He was clearly capable of feeling _something_ in the end - not enough for her, though.

“I think he did,” Rogue says slowly.  “His actions were inexcusable but they were happy for some time.  We don't know what happened there to change that, but for at least six years they were happy.”

“Would you still love Sting if he tried to kill you?” Lucy asks suddenly.

“Would you still love Cobra if he tried to kill you?” Rogue counters.

Lucy snorts lightly.  “He tried to murder me _twice_ before we became friends.  Third time's the charm.”

“You've fallen in love with people who've attempted to kill you in two different timelines.  This is starting to sound like a you problem,” Rogue says, turning his head to shoot her a small smile, almost teasing in nature.

“I guess I have a type.  What's yours, then? Hyperactive nuts?”

“Blondes, apparently,” he deadpans.  Lucy whips a pillow at his head and laughs when he catches it midair and launches it right back.  

They'll be okay.  Maybe not fine, but okay is enough for now.

* * *

 **Present Day** **  
** **Wisteria Bar** **  
** **Oak Town, Fiore.** **  
** **Sunday, October 17th, X792.** **  
** **3:16 AM**

Ikuha's got this sixth sense for knowing just when to have a mug of tea ready.  It's something she used to lament when she was younger - of all the things to have a sense for and it's not even something she can use in _battle_.  After a couple years of doing this, though, she's come to appreciate the gift.  People are _so_ much more willing to talk when they feel all cozy and safe.  Words are the currency of her trade and tea is her favourite bartering tool.  

Well, that and a good old fashioned butterfly knife, but that's neither here nor there.

She deftly seals up a sachet of dried peaches and lemongrass, dipping it in a mug of hot water just as the door to her ( _closed goddammit does nobody read signs these days?_ ) bar swings open with a soft jingle.  “Fancy seeing _you_ of all people here.”

Totomaru scowls and shakes his hair dry.  Great. It's _raining_.  She'd just washed her hair, too.

“Get used to it.  I'm assuming Erik was here earlier?” He sits himself down at the bar and accepts the tea without so much as a nod of thanks.  She rolls her eyes. Ungrateful bastard.

“Yup.  Wanted some info about the Gate, but you knew that already.   _You_ have no interest in the thing, so if you're poking around then it means...hm, Fairy Tail's involved.  I figured Sabertooth was because their Guild Master was here with him. The Fairies, though, _that's_ interesting.”

“I need a few books,” he says shortly, sliding over an unmarked envelope.  She pulls out a thin stack of bills and eyes them critically. Totomaru's not stupid enough to try and give her counterfeit bills, but even he isn't as anal as she is about flying under the radar.  No consecutive serial numbers, half a million Jewel, and the book titles and author names. If only her clients had half the sense this one did.

“Patterns of caster inheritance I get, you teach a bunch of brats with wonky-ass magic.  A book on the _Fates_ , though? By Dimikov? Midlife crisis, much?” Ikuha teases, though her eyes have gone razor sharp.  One of the things that makes her such a goddamn amazing agent is that she sees connections _long_ before anyone else can, and right now there's a red line being drawn between this and Cobra's earlier visit.  If _Totomaru's_ looking into _inheritance_ patterns, that means rare magic interactions and a brat to go with it.  If _Cobra's_ asking about the Gate, it involves him or that pretty little Fairy of his.  Factor in Eucliffe, the text on Fates, and what she knows about the whole Dragon Festival fiasco…

What's more rare than the hybrid child of a Dragon Slayer and Celestial Spirit Mage?

“They had a kid, didn't they?” she guesses.  “Future them. That's why you're all poking around like fucking bloodhounds.  Shit.”

“Fifteen seconds.  Not bad, kid.”

“That's not a no, old man.  Goddamn, next time just _tell_ me this shit so I don't have to waste my time thinking,” she clicks her tongue and sends the money to one of her obscure requip holes.  “Inheritance book is easy pickings. Fate one might be tricky, I have to call a contact in Iceberg for it.”

“Thanks, Ikuha,” Totomaru says quietly, eyes far away.  “I'll be out of your hair soon, just give me a few minutes.”

“Take your time, I'm not going anywhere until it stops pissing outside.”

* * *

**Future Timeline**

**Magnolia, Fiore**

**Friday, March 8th, X797**

**12:50 AM**

_Rogue hauls Cynthia's limp form out of the shadows he left her in and sighs despite the throb of his ribs.  She'd cried herself to sleep._

_“Is she okay?” Lucy asks at his side, patting her down feather-soft and checking for blood.  Rogue eyes the sluggishly bleeding wound on her forehead and the gravel embedded deeply in her chest.  Those are going to hurt like a_ bitch _when he irrigates them tonight._

_“Physically,” he says carefully._

_“No nightlight, huh?” Lucy smiles sadly.  “My poor girl. I should've left Loke with her.”_

_“Your magic would have been too strained.  She's going to have to learn to cope with it some day, if Sting d-” he swallows harshly.  “If Sting dies.”_

_“I know.  I just…”_

_“Yeah, I know.”_

* * *

_The roads, the waterfalls, the river, and the glow of the candles have changed._

_Life is playing a new tune,_ _  
_ _Even the way the rain falls has changed._

 _-Kaise Mujhe_   



	9. Breathe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: IT ONLY TOOK FIVE MONTHS THIS TIME, I'M GETTING BETTER YOU GUYS.
> 
> Check bottom A/N for more info etc, but for now...the moment exactly none of you have been waiting for...a whole ass chapter from only one character's POV! That's right! OC time!
> 
> Somewhere, in the distance, my 12 year old self is imploding. Yikes.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does. Also don't own any songs used at the beginning and end of every chapter.

_We will flow away with the wind,_

_We will live in the sky._

_You are my rain,_

_And I am your cloud, my beloved._

_-Kalank_

* * *

**Future Timeline**

**Magnolia, Fiore**

**Thursday, February 4th, X793**

**9:22 AM**

_"Where is she?"_

_"Rogue, holy shit, your arm! Fuck, get Wendy here-!"_

_"_ Where is she _?"_

_Sting exchanges a helpless look with Laxus as he stabilizes the jagged piece of metal embedded in his forearm._

_"Sting.  Where_ is _she?" Rogue snaps, swatting his best friend's hands away.  Fidgeting is one of Sting's oldest deflecting techniques and he's not got the time to play twenty questions when Lucy's - he cuts himself off.  She's okay. She's_ got _to be okay._

_"There was a dragon, Scissor Runner…"_

_No._

_"Lucy engaged on her own because we needed some extra cover, and then Motherglare appeared…"_

_No.  No. Nonononono-_

_"You_ know _the protocol once Motherglare appears.  We had to run. We tried to get her but-"_

_"You abandoned her," Rogue says as an eerie calm washes through his veins.  In that moment, everything fades to nothing: the voices in the infirmary, the cold air against his skin, the throbbing ache in his arm, the smell of blood in the air.  Everything except sight. He doesn't see_ red _, no he's far past that.  His vision is spotting explosive, hot white._

_"Rogue, I - hey, what the_ fuck _!" Sting yelps as Rogue rips the metal out of his arm and allows it to the clatter on the floor.  "What are you_ doing _?"_

_"Getting my wife back," Rogue snarls._

_"We can't afford backup troops," Laxus says, pressing a hand to his shoulder.  There's a buildup of static electricity under his fingers and he ducks out from his grasp before the Lightning Slayer can start up with his brain stimulation routine._

_"I don't care.  I'm going alone."_

_"It's a suicide mission, man," Gray says from where he's icing a gaping wound on Natsu's leg._

_"And if it were Sorano, you intend to tell me you would not do the same?"_

_Gray presses his lips together in a thin line._

_"That's what I thought." Rogue unfastens his shredded cloak and wraps the usable portions around his arm in a makeshift bandage, throwing the rest on the floor behind him._

* * *

**Present Day**

**14 Strawberry Street**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Tuesday, October 19th, X792.**

**6:30 AM**

The clock on the wall is interesting to watch.

She's never seen a clock before.  There was never enough lacrima to spare to power one, so she'd grown used to approximates and found comfort in tracking shadows to pass time.  A minute was an inch, an hour a little more, and a day was light to dark like clockwork. Mom used to use that phrase a lot - 'like clockwork'.  When she asked what that meant, mom smiled and said 'one day you'll see'.  

She used to say that a lot, too.

Like clockwork is the reliable 'tick-tick-tick' of the second hand that she learns matches the steady beat of her own heart.  It's the 'tock' every time the minute hand edges forward - twelve breaths in time. It's the soft jingle once an hour passes and the sky grows a shade lighter and the shadows start fading away.  Time has _meaning_.  It's something she can touch with her hands, well within her grasp if she tries hard enough to find the tail end of it.  

But she doesn't.  

Cynthia looks out the window and waits for the sun to peek up from the horizon to welcome a new day.

* * *

"Do you want orange juice? I totally understand if you don't, it tastes gross after brushing your teeth.  Porlyusica said to up your vitamins, though, and I figure this stuff has a lot, but we can find some alternatives soon! I mean, we have to go pick up your pills soon anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter, but a well-rounded meal is vital for a growing-"

She rambles a lot, this version of her mom.  Lucy. She can't decide what feels weirder to say.  She's not _her_ mom, but _Lucy_ feels wrong.  They're the same person, aren't they? But they're not.  They look the same and they talk the same but mom would never walk on eggshells around her. 

"What does ‘walk on eggshells’ mean?" Cynthia asks.

"Huh? Oh, it means you're very delicate in regards to something because it's fragile.  It's a metaphor, because if you squeeze an egg too hard it breaks, so you have to be very gentle walking on eggshells," Lucy explains, her brow furrowing just a little.

"Oh.  I'll have water." She walks to the table, balancing on the balls of her feet.  There are no squeaky floors here and no scary dragons outside, but she can't walk around _normally_.  That's something only adults do because they can do it quietly.  Dad said he would show her how Dragon Slayers did it one day when she was older.  

Rogue watches her as she takes a seat, careful not to make a noise.  He doesn't talk much, just like dad. It's harder for her to see the differences between them when they don't seem to exist.  They both always look empty. Except dad didn't seem empty when he looked at her or mom. He was happy then. Rogue looks at Lucy like he's _scared_ of something, sometimes, but mostly he looks at her like he's sad.  Cynthia doesn't have a word for his eyes when he looks at her. It's not angry or happy or sad, but something a little more distant.

Lucy hands her a glass of water and a bowl of oatmeal because Porlyusica said she had to eat light food to start.  Unsweetened, although there's some bananas mashed in. It's probably the most filling, clean thing she's ever eaten.  Mom said that one day she'd have so much food she'd never know what to do with it - that never made sense to her. The first thing she'd do is make sure mom and dad ate, because they were always giving her half of theirs.

Cynthia waits to see that both Rogue and Lucy have plates before taking a bite of her own breakfast.  They don't talk. It's a 'covert rule', like Aunt Levy explained. It's much more comfortable in the silence where she can pretend Rogue's hair is longer and Lucy's got scars running along her arms and they're dad and mom.  Just dad and mom.

It's quiet for a long time.  She makes sure not to let her spoon scrape the sides of the dish even though it will only startle the birds.  There a lot of those here, in all sorts of colours and patterns, just as Miss Sorano told her before she died.  She stuffs her mouth before she can ask them if Miss Sorano's alive in this timeline, ignoring the tightness in her shoulder at the motion; Lucy cried the last time she did, and even Rogue seemed shaken up by it.  It's just another reminder that no matter how everything _looks_ the same, that's all it is: looks.  Back home, these questions are normal.  Expected, even. Mom and dad tried to shield her from it for the longest time but at one point there were simply not enough people left to hide the whispered conversations between.  They tried even until the end, though.

"We were thinking we could go clothes shopping?" Lucy suggests after they've all cleared their plates.  "You could use some new clothes. And maybe a haircut, if you'd like?"

Cynthia touches her stringy hair.  It's the one thing of hers that's also dad's: the colour, the length, even the angles to the curling ends.  'Splitting image', Uncle Sting used to say, tugging those unruly strands. Her back tenses like she's bracing for a hit, except all that comes is a dull throb in her chest when she thinks of him.  Of all of them. They all died with Uncle Sting, even if some of them were still walking.

"Or not," Lucy adds quickly, "Just the clothes is fine."

"Okay," Cynthia murmurs, picking a knot of wood in the table to stare at as she forces everything to _go away_ , the tightness in her chest, the subtle _thudthudthud_ of her heart picking up in speed.  Everything's better when she doesn't feel.  Everything is safe until she starts again.  

Across from her, Rogue closes his eyes.

* * *

**Present Day**

**Central Mart**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Tuesday, October 19th, X792.**

**10:23 AM**

Cynthia's never seen these many people in her _life_.  They bustle around her decked in colours she can’t give names to, chatting away at a decibel she thinks shouldn’t even be possible from humans.  Lucy and Rogue seem comfortable enough pushing through the crowd with her in tow. It’s like second nature to them when all she wants to do is slink away into the shadows until it’s safe to come out again.  How do they know people here won’t hurt them? How do they know where’s safe? 

“How about that one?” Lucy points to one of the larger stores in the mall.  “They’ve got a good variety for a decent price. We can get you a whole new wardrobe.”

“We need to purchase an actual wardrobe, too,” Rogue says.  

“I’m sure we can ask Laki.”

“Ah.”

She’s immensely grateful for the sudden drop in pressure upon entering the store.  Her eyes follow Rogue’s to the doors, where a set of runes are painted neatly on the frame.  “Silencing runes,” he explains for her sake, “Most stores have them to keep the outside noise out.”

“Kind of genius, huh? Okay, um...I’m not really sure how to do this.  Do you want us to follow you around or do you want to wander around nearby for a bit to see if you like something?” Lucy asks, bending down to her level.  Although she tenses at the thought of wandering around _alone_ in the _open_ like this - it’s one of those cardinal rules not even Uncle Laxus broke while he was alive - she can’t deny that the thought of indulging in one of her favourite past-times sends a thrill down her back.  There was never much to explore in the hideout but she cherished the little freedom she had to be alone for a few hours before dad would find her. It’s safer here though, she reasons, and it’s not like a dragon is going to come crashing through the roof for her head, so she nods at Lucy and mumbles ‘yes, please’ so quietly it sounds like a soft exhale.

“Alright! Sounds like a plan to me.  I’ll just be a few racks down that way and Rogue…”

“I’ll find you both later.”

With that, they’re gone, and Cynthia’s alone.

The first thing she does is march over to the rack with the darkest clothing in her size.  The lady next to her looks at the little tag attached to a shirt and winces, turning on her heel and walking away.  Curious, she flips the tag on a pair of dark wash jeans and squints at the number. Three thousand Jewel; a little ping goes off in her head as she scrambles to find a definition for that.  'Notation exchanged for material goods' is a start, but it doesn't tell her much - is that a good price? A bad price? Uncle Natsu used to call mom a miser for complaining over Jewels back before the war, but what counts as miserly? Cynthia gnaws at her lips and takes a second to appreciate the tangy lip balm Lucy had been diligently applying for her since her arrival.  She's hardly felt a crack since. It's nice to be able to taste something other than blood on her lips.

The older lady seemed to think three thousand was a bit much, so using that as a metric she shuffles off to a rack labeled 'clearance', where she swipes up a pair of black jeans and a mossy green shirt that matches the trees outside.  Her fingers pause for a second too long on a shirt that's more pink ruffles than white fabric. It's so _pretty_ , but it's so inconspicuous it hurts her eyes.  _You're safe here.  You can afford to wear colour._

_But can I?_

She grabs the dark grey turtleneck behind it instead, adding to the pile in her arms.

_Can't afford to take chances.  Never._

"You know, I think you'd do a better job of blending in if you went for the girly stuff," an amused voice says from behind her, "unless your plan is to _not_ blend in."

Cynthia eyes the newcomer critically.  Two-toned hair, tall, scruffy, and undeniably a mage if the calluses on his fingers are any indication.  She's seen him before somewhere.

"I agree, the ruffles _are_ a bit much, though," he says, nodding at the clothes in her grasp, "but the army gear isn't much better.  You're seven, not seventeen."

_How does he know how old I am?_ Cynthia takes a step back and fights to keep her panic out of her eyes.  There were few rogue mages back home but those that she met - or, rather, her parents met - did nothing but hijack the chaos of the dragons for their own gain.  She glanced around wildly, looking for exits: he's got the main one blocked but perhaps there's a back door - ?

He catches the look on her face and waves his hands placatingly.  "Ah, right. Forgot to introduce myself, my bad. I'm Totomaru Kaji.  I don't suppose you've heard of me before?"

Totomaru.  

_"Ahh, see, we were once a part of this little...gang of sorts.  The Element Four! Well, Gajeel was more of a side member, but there was Aria, Sol, Totomaru, and-"_

"Juvia," Cynthia murmurs.

"Yeah, Juvia.  We were teammates once."

"Element Four."

"Guess she gave you the whole run-down in that timeline.  Well, saves me time, then. I assume Lucy and Rogue are hovering around somewhere, but until then…" Totomaru crouches down to her level and jerks his head at her clothes.  "Fill me in on that."

Cynthia blinks.  Fill him in on _what_? 

"Er, right.  Why the drab clothes?"

"Blends in with the background.  Easier to hide."

"Why do you need to hide _here_? You're safe."

"For now." _For now_.  It's _always_ been a never-ending loop of _for now._ Grandmother Layla used to tell her mom stories about the stars; mom would brush her hair back and have _her_ recite the quickest route to the safety bunkers from her room.  _Just for now, sweetie.  One day we won't have to do this anymore._   Today is probably that day, but for some reason it doesn't feel that way.  Her heart still races as if the dragons and shadow creatures are lurking behind the clouds, and she's the only one who seems to care.

"You should enjoy the 'for now' while you can, don't you think?" When she doesn't reply, he sighs and scratches his head.  "Not very talkative, huh? Alright. That's fine, normally I'm not either, but I guess one of us has to be."

"Don't think so."

"True.  Alright, here's an idea: you keep shopping, and I'll...keep an eye on you.  Safety in numbers."

"My six," she parrots what Uncle Sting used to say to her dad before missions.  "You...have my six."

"I guess, yeah."

Cynthia nods sharply and turns back to the racks.  Totomaru's good about staying quiet; she doesn't even her him walk and he's got on wooden shoes.  Her own flats make a soft clack that has her face twisted into a permanent grimace that worsens as she tries to soften the sound.  How does he _do_ that? She makes a note to ask him later.  

He watches her pick out her clothes with a curious eye, twitching his fingers every so often when she reaches for something, but there isn't a pattern to it - she checks.  Twice. When she's got six black pants and six dark tops to match, he huffs. She grabs a shirt at random, just to see if it's the even number that's set him off, and grows still when he smiles.  

"Finally, a bit of colour." Cynthia furrows her brow and looks at the shirt in her hand.  Red. Bright red. Blood red. Natsu red. She drops it like it's on fire and exhales shakily.  That's too colourful. It's like a beacon saying 'kill me'. Even Uncle Natsu stopped with the fiery accents to his shirts after a while.  How can _she_ of all people even think about donning something this bright when a dragon slayer wouldn't? Totomaru picks up the shirt - no, it's more of a cloak? - and places it on top of her shirts, patting it gently.

"You don't have to wear it right away.  It's for when you're ready to."

_Choices._   She's never really had those before.

"Totomaru," Rogue greets, materializing from the shadows.  

"Hi, Rogue." Totomaru waves, standing up and dusting his yukata off.  "It's been a while. Ran into your daughter and thought we'd chat."

"Future Rogue's."

Totomaru raised a brow.  "Of course. Future Rogue's."

_Future Rogue's.  Right. Not his. Never his.  Don't belong. Not your home._

"Oh! Hi, Totomaru! Fancy seeing you here!" Lucy says, more cheerful than Cynthia's seen her as of late.  She doesn't miss the solid three feet she keeps between herself and Rogue. "Oh, wow, look at that poncho! Good choice, Cynthia, it's super cute!"

_Poncho_ , she mouths to herself.  That’s new.

“I was wondering if we could all have a chat,” Totomaru says, “My office.  Now, preferably.”

* * *

**Present Day**

**Magnolia Central Hospital, Psychiatric Department**

**Magnolia, Fiore.**

**Tuesday, October 19th, X792.**

**11:30 AM**

Totomaru’s office is smaller than her bedroom back home, but she supposes it’s because it’s so... _full_.  There’s a square on his desk not covered in papers that looks like it’s the size of a paper, and there are paper towers the size of her head surrounding it.  The bookshelves are stuffed to the brim and then some, and what’s not shelves lies in piles on the floor nearby. There are only two chairs squeezed in, so she picks a book pile to sit on while Lucy and Rogue take the chairs, looking about as comfortable as she is - which is to say, not at all.

Totomaru has a file open in front of him that he’s looking through as he speaks.  “I’ll be honest with you, the survey I sent you home with left me with more questions than answers, so I’ll...do what I can here.  Cynthia, what kind of magic can you use?”

“Water.” Rogue looks as confused as he can manage, and Lucy just looks sad.

“Do you need to hold something to use the water or no?”

“No.”

“Where does the water come from.”

“Puddles.”

“Not thin air?”

“No.  Tried once, didn’t work.”

“Any other magic?”

She pauses.  It was only once and mom was over the moon when she told her, but dad said not to tell anyone else…

“No,” she lies.  Totomaru stares at her for a second and then sighs sharply, turning to her not-parents with an unamused smile on his face.  “I expect this level of nonsense from Fairy Tail, but from what Dobengal’s told me of Sabertooth...oh, well. Okay, what do you know about magical inheritance?”

“Nothing,” Rogue answers for them.

“Great, wonderful.  To make it short, you don’t directly inherit either the type - Caster or Holder - of magic your parents have, _or_ their specific type of magic, so fire, take-over, et cetera.  You’re born with the capacity for both Holder and Caster, but your parents being one or the other increases the chances for one or the other.  For example, if...Elfman and Evergreen were to have a child, the child would be twice as likely to develop a Caster type magic of some sort, but they would still have the capacity for Holder type.  Now, you’re a Holder/Caster mix, which is fairly common, but my main...concern, if you will, is the fact that both of your magic are _incredibly_ heritable.

“Rogue, as a Dragon Slayer, we don’t have much data on your particular branch of magic but if the research I’ve done is true it does tend to run in families.  Of course, the data are hundreds of years old so it’s not very reliable but we’ll make do with what we have. Lucy, your magic _definitely_ runs in families.  In fact the Heartfilia women are almost traditionally required to be Celestial Spirit users.  The fact that Cynthia has not only entirely bypassed her matrilineal line of type inheritance, but also any relation whatsoever to her father’s Caster magic is...almost unheard of, really.  

“I said earlier that inheritance was tricky and that’s true.  I would normally expect her to be able to use something similar to Rogue’s magic.  Not Dragon Slayer, but something related to shadows. The magic you develop reflects your environment to an extent, and your environment influences your magic - if you have an elemental predisposition and you’re around a lot of grass growing up then you can use grass-type magic; so I assume the environment she was in had a lot of water access? Or perhaps Aquarius in that timeline...nevermind, I’m getting off track.  

“The point is, she’s got a very uniquely wired set of magic and unless you’ve managed to figure out the Aquarius situation, Lucy, none of you are prepared to handle it.”

“That’s _short_?” Lucy mutters.  

Totomaru goes a little pink.  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently.  I might have to write a paper about this later on, I’m getting a publishing itch again.  Anyway. Like I said, none of you are prepared to handle _it_ and frankly none of you are prepared to handle _her_."

Cynthia frowns.  She's been good. They can handle her.  They have been handling her, unless she's done something bad she can't remember…she rolls the ache out of her neck and shoulders as best she can.

"We can handle her," Rogue says firmly.

"No, you can't." Totomaru leans back and sighs again.  "Rogue already knows this, but for those unaware-"

"You mean me," Lucy mutters again.

"-I'm a licensed psychiatrist with a subspecialty in trauma rehab, which is tragically perfect for this situation.  For all of you. I'm also a magical tutor, which, once again, tragically makes me perfect for this. I'll take Cynthia on as my student, but I'll also be there to give her the therapy she needs to deal with...everything thus far," he informs them with a grim smile.  "You both need help. Because of the _events_ from the first Gate, you're both still understandably uncomfortable with one another even if you've managed a truce, and that's not going to help her here.  She needs stability, not whatever it is you have going on right now."

_No_ , Cynthia wants to interject, _I need them in whatever way I can get them.  I need mom and dad. They'll do. Please don't take me away._

But she stays quiet and still because this is a threat and this is what she's supposed to do until it's handled.

"We can be stable," Lucy snaps, rising to her feet and looking like hell incarnate in her eyes.  "We _are_ stable.  Excuse us for being a little shaken up by the suddenness of this all, but we've got this handled, Totomaru."

"I concur," Rogue says, though he doesn't rise up in indignation like she does.  "We are capable of handling this."

"When was the last time either of you spoke with Sting or Cobra?" _That_ shuts them up.  Lucy pales so much so quickly she collapses back into her seat and presses a shaky hand to her mouth.  

"We're working on it," Rogue lies.  Cynthia knows he's lying because that's how she lies, too.  He taught her how.

"No, you are not," a melodic voice calls from the entrance.  "But it is understandable."

A thousand sensations flood Cynthia when she hears that voice: learning to swim, birthday cakes, forming floating balls of water, blue everywhere, dolls and needles, sweet things and rainfall.  Tears and a funeral.

Aunt Juvia looks a lot calmer here than she did back home.  Her face is less gaunt, framed by hair that's curlier than she remembers it being.  Her outfit is just as conservative as before, covering her neck to toe. Her eyes are happier.  So much happier. Cynthia digs her fingers into her legs to keep them from launching her across the room so she can hug her.  _This isn't_ my _Aunt Juvia_.  _Not mine._

"I'm a fire-type mage and she needs a water-type to model.  I've also come to the logical conclusion that in that timeline, Juvia was the one to help her with her magic seeing as she's the only Caster Water mage between Fairy Tail and Sabertooth," Totomaru explains.  

"Juvia is glad to help," she says with a slight bow their way.  "Juvia also wants to inform Rogue and Lucy that they should make arrangements to meet with Sting and Cobra soon.  Laxus says it is either that or he forces the four of you to sit down in his office and have tea therapy with Mira." Cynthia doesn't remember much of Aunt Mira except kind eyes and a voice like windchimes so the brief flash of fear across Lucy's face is surprising.  

“Right,” Lucy says tightly, “We should do that soon, then.”

“Today,” Totomaru prompts bluntly.  “No offense, but I only have enough time and energy to deal with one of you.”

“I’ll go get them.  You take Cynthia back to your house-”

“No, she stays here.  I’d rather get started on her rehab now instead of later.  She doesn’t need to be there to see that, and they should probably be meeting her when the four of you figure out what the hell is going on amongst yourselves.”

She rather likes Totomaru.  He’s honest in a way that no adult has ever been around her, mostly because they think she doesn’t notice the same things they do.  Cynthia’s not _stupid_.  She knows she’s not supposed to be here (she’s not supposed to be anywhere but buried with her parents, really) and she knows that life here isn’t like life back home.  The only thing that’s the same is the way her parents and this Rogue and Lucy do their best to pretend everything is fine when she’s around, even when they’re aware, if nothing but subconsciously, that there’s no point because she’s been trained to _listen_.  Life has always been dependent on the ability to stay quiet, hidden, eyes wide, ears open.  Three days of relative peace is nothing when she’s lived through weeks of calm and then a deluge of dragons and Uncle Gray’s body blown to bits before her very eyes.

Rogue shifts uncomfortably, the barest hint of panic in his eyes, and nods.  “Fine.”

“Cynthia, are you okay if we leave you here with Totomaru and Juvia for a bit? We’ll be right back, promise,” Lucy says.  Cynthia nods, equal parts because that’s what’s expected of her and the fact that the tension between the three of them is getting painful.

“Are you going to leave or keep monologuing? Because if I wanted to see Shakespeare I’d pay for it.”

* * *

The first thing Totomaru does is make her write a test.  There’s math on there, ranging from simple addition to things with curvy lines and letters, along with language and comprehension.  She answers what she can, which is admittedly very little, and guesses for the rest. Her writing isn’t the neatest and she’s certain she misspelt everything as is tradition for her; mom may have been an avid reader but there were no books around growing up and she had to make do with chalk and dirt for her lessons, if they could even be called that.

There are more tests, but they make less sense to her than the written one.  He asks her to draw a clock with the time of ten minutes past three; after that she has to replicate a pattern of squares and triangles in a line, then trace a jumble of numbers in order, and then copy a drawing by looking at it first and then not looking at it.  She watches his face carefully after she’s done every task, looking for any hint of distress or disapproval, but he remains perfectly blank. Is this normal? Does he make all his students do this? Is she doing this _right_? Is there even a right way to do this? Cynthia’s never felt so shaky in her life as she waits for the next test, her hands wet even after she rubs them against her jeans.  This is...uncomfortable.

Her first break comes in the form of his lips twitching down when he has her do a test where she has to say the colour of the word and not the word itself.  It’s just a fraction of a second but it’s there and that’s something she can deal with.  

“Alright,” Totomaru sighs, closing his notebook and rubbing his eyes wearily.  “I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

“Did bad?”

“As a psychiatrist, I’m supposed to say there’s no bad, only a workable baseline.  Except I think you’re a bit smarter than that, so I’ll be honest with you: yes, it’s bad.  But not _bad_ -bad, it’s…” he huffs, frustrated, and turns to Juvia, who’s been watching quietly from the other chair.  “English this for me.”

“Totomaru means to say that this does not mean that Cynthia is bad, but that Cynthia is hurt and the tests show that,” Juvia supplies, smiling at her kindly.  

“This is why I keep you around.  I’ll keep this brief: academically, you’re about three years behind your peers.  I’ve worked with worse so we can get you up to speed soon. Emotionally, we’re going to be here for a long time.”

“Totomaru.”

“Okay, emotionally we’re going to be here for a not- _short_ amount of time, but it’s not like this is going to take decades to undo.  It will take months, if not years, and even then we’re going to need to meet every so often to make sure you’re not regressing.” Totomaru braces his elbows on his knees and leans forward, meeting her gaze carefully.  Most of the adults in her life up until now have always had the exact same look in their eyes when talking to her, a perfectly hopeful, happy sort of glint that’s rarely ever real - she’s come to associate all of that with dread because that’s the kind of look that means they’re hiding something _bad_ just so she can sleep easy at night.  But Totomaru has none of that. There’s no false joy or hope or even any pity in those pitch black eyes; just calm expectation.  

For the first time in a long time, her back feels a little less tight, her breaths a little easier to manage.

“Juvia and I are ready to help you.  Are you ready to be helped?”

“Yes,” Cynthia says quietly, but it feels like she’s shouting it from the rooftops.  He grins and flops back in his chair, stretching like a cat. “And my job for the day is officially over.  Juvia, the kid’s all yours.”

“Totomaru will be being a lazy, unproductive member of society then?”

“Nope, I’ll be watching from the distance.” Juvia raises a brow and he tacks on, “And marking.  Always marking.”

“If Totomaru was not so lazy on the weekend, he would not be so behind in marking,” she sniffs, ignoring his sputters as she turns to face Cynthia.  Juvia holds up her hand, barely flexing her fingers to summon a small sphere of water so clear it takes her breath away. Is it possible for water to look like that? It’s magic, yes, but this is _magic_.  

“Juvia has been informed Cynthia has a water affinity.  We will begin by practicing holding this in the air. Juvia wishes to see you hold this in exactly this shape and size for one second.” Juvia waits for her to hold out her hand, and then gently passes the water ball off to her.  The second Juvia lets go, the water splashes all over the floor and her clothes and Cynthia’s heart stutters erratically in her chest. This has never happened before this isn’t normal this isn’t good she needs to concentrate she needs she needs _she needs she doesn’t know what she needs but it’s something she can’t touch in time to fix this she needs to runrunrun._

“Stop,” Totomaru says curtly, less amused than he was a second ago.  “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“I’ve done this before, I don’t know what’s wrong.  I don’t know what to do. I can’t fix this. I don’t know where to go.”

“Why do you need to go?”

“Dad said when bad things happen I need to go and hide.”

“Is this bad?”

This throws her for a loop.  It feels bad. Burning and hair pricked right up like there’s a dragon nearby, but she can’t hear any screaming.  “...yes?” she says hesitantly, “I don’t...know. Feels like it’s bad. Like there’s a dragon outside and I can’t see it but I feel it’s there.  Feels the same.”

“That’s called anxiety, Cynthia, and it can happen even when there’s no danger around you.  Your heart is beating really fast now and you’re nervous. Those are things you’ve always felt when dragons were nearby, right? You feel that now so you feel like you’re in danger, but you’re not.” As Totomaru says this, Juvia summons all the water back into the same ball as before, but it’s pulsing gently this time.  “Watch the water and take deep, steady breaths. Your heart is going to start to beat slower. When you feel like it’s beating in time with the water, you tell me and we’ll start again.”

It feels like it takes forever, but she counts 400 pulses before nodding his way.  

“This time, if you feel it again, I want you to do what we just did.  Breathe through it no matter how much it’s freaking you out. Anxiety is normal.  This is new. It’s okay to not do this perfectly. That’s the point of this, to show you how.”

Cynthia accepts the ball and it falls apart again and her heart is racing, but she forces herself to breathe.  There are no dragons. This is anxiety. There are no dragons. She is safe. Breathe. In and out. In and out.  It’s so hard when her heart beats so powerfully it forces her lungs into tiny corners, but there are tiny breaths and those are fine.  _There are no dragons_.

Juvia forms the ball, and like that it gets easier to breathe again.  Every steady inhale forces her lungs to widen a bit more, a tiny protest that forces her heart to remember where it belongs.  

“Okay,” Cynthia says, hand out.  “Again.”

* * *

**Future Timeline**

**Magnolia, Fiore**

**Friday, February 5th, X793**

**7:42 PM**

_The hospital wing is surprisingly empty considering the chaos of the previous day.  Part of Rogue wonders if it was vacated on purpose after his return._

_“Wendy said I was fine,” Lucy says, “Can you please look at me?”_

_What will he see when he looks at her? That Wendy was lying? That there’s a line on her throat that he had to hold shut that’s still bleeding in his eyes? The bandages keeping her together where he’s failed? Rogue tries to find parts of her that aren’t broken but he can’t find_ anything.

_“Rogue, please.”_

_“They abandoned you.  You were still alive.”_

_“It’s protocol.”_

_“_ Fuck _protocol!” he snarls, his echo taking him by surprise.  So_ this _is why nobody else is here.  Lucy doesn’t flinch, reaching for his hand and holding it tightly._

_“My life does not outweigh those of the others.  Save as many as we can, lose as few as we can. We designed the protocol, Rogue.  You signed off on it.”_

_“I don’t care, you were still there.  They could’ve saved you.”_

_“You’re being irrational.”_

_“You can call me irrational after you’ve been forced to botch a cauterization on me and then drag my half-dead body back to base.  Do you have any idea what it was like sitting outside waiting for Wendy to finish up with you? I was still covered in your blood, Lucy.  It felt like a prison. You’re my_ wife _, how can you not see what…”_

_“I’m pregnant.”_

_Rogue doesn’t quite know how he remembers to inhale, but once his vision starts dotting black he takes in a little gasp of air that’s shot right out and he’s back to feeling dizzy but not quite dizzy enough to pass out.  Just enough that Lucy’s blurring and_ pregnant _?_

_“Wendy found it while healing me just now.  I’m only a few weeks along.”_

_Baby.  Baby._ Baby.

_“What do you want to do?” he says once the world stops fading in and out._

_“I don’t know.  If this were any other time…” If this were any other time he would’ve been as close to ecstatic as he’s capable of getting.  If this were any other time he would’ve hugged her tight and told her he loved her and they were going to be_ parents _.  If this were any other time…he squeezes his eyes shut and swallows against the choking sensation in his throat._

_“It’s not safe,” Rogue says, detached.  Dragons and babies do not mix. Dragons and babies do not mix.  The baby will die and so will he._

_“It’s not safe,” she agrees, “But…I think we can try anyway.”_

_“You think?”_

_“I know.”_

_“Okay.” Rogue presses his lips to her hand.  “We’ll try.”_

* * *

_What kind of turn in the road has life brought us to,_

_Where we have become distant from ourselves?_

_-Kalank_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: WOW OKAY first of all sorry it took so long to write this but my love for FT is literally dead and gone from this world, esp after the ending and it's been really hard to find the motivation to finish any of my FT fics when I hate canon so much it hurts. Reading FT100YQ literally killed any love I had for the series, but I'm determined to get the complete sign up on every fucking fic that doesn't have it yet.
> 
> That's right, I'm going to finish this. Hopefully by June. For some reason June is my lucky month, 'cause I finished 41 Days of Lucy then, too. It's probs cause that's my birth month and my chaotic Gemini energy is at its highest. Anyway, yes Chaos Theory will finally be done and then I can sleep in fucking peace.
> 
> Listen, I'm in my last year of university, I wanna get all these unfinished projects done so I can move on to things I'm actually hype for (rhos if you're reading this you know). Part of this means I'm also going to finish Hit and Miss (okay, I still like this one so), and Red Card (I'm never doing ship weeks again, I can never finish them riefjomk), Memento Mori (I low-key wanna hit 100 chapters on that though, give me your feedback on what you think), Father (I'm so attached to the papalogia identity).
> 
> Certain fics are really up for debate: One Missed Call, Mellifluous, Portals to Hell, and One-Ply Promises. I want to finish them. I don't know what you want to see me do with them. How long do you want them? Do you want them to be serious or my brand of meme-y? Pls sirs I'm begging for y'alls opinions here.
> 
> Thanks for readings this note, sorry if I sound whiny, I'm just...so tired. I'm never gonna write a long-fic ever again, this is way too much work and I've found my niche in dumpster fire oneshots anyway. Also, hope the notification email didn't give you a heart attack erhofndks.
> 
> R&R please and thanks.
> 
> -Eien

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Fairy Tail, Hiro Mashima does, I also don't own any songs in this fic, etc etc


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